Prospective Students
Read below to learn more about the inspiration and structure of the Workshop. When you are ready, give us a call or an email and we can talk about how to get you in.
Inspiration
Before I was successful learning R, I had a few false starts. I really wanted to learn, but I could not get it to stick. One day I walked into a colleague’s office and saw he had a few books on R. I asked him if he knew R, and his eyes lit up. We talked about it and I communicated my desire to learn, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to try again.
As a Lean Six Sigma consultant, I had been around long enough to know when an executive hands you a bomb disguised as a “high priority” project. I had just been given one of those projects and I knew it was time to clear the calendar and double down. But, the project was so damning I felt like I needed a fail safe- a back up plan- in case my 1 year old daughter, wife and I had to look for another job and new home for the second time in a year. Then, it dawned on me…
If this project blew up in my face, a technical skill set would be exactly what I needed to market myself to other positions. So, I made a decision- it was time to learn R. I would apply everything I learned about R directly toward the project I was given. If my project failed, I still succeeded by acquiring a new skill set. If my project was successful, then I succeeded twice.
I reached out to my colleague and asked him if he’d support my learning. He was more excited than I was. I sat my wife down and let her know she’d be living with a stranger for the next few months. She said go for it. I doubled down and did it.
I learned R as a back-up plan, but ended up being successful because of R.
The decision to apply code first principles to my work was one of the most important decisions I made in my professional career- no exaggeration. I received an award, a small bonus and a large promotion. The award sent me to IHI where I was profoundly challenged by the keynote, Bryan Stevenson. Bryan’s work inspired a new layer of purpose and passion to my life (don’t get me started). I was invited to speak at a couple large conferences. One of the conferences led to an article in a magazine. At the other conference, I met my future (and current) boss because he introduced me before one of my presentations. The thread weaves on, there is much more. Still, let it suffice to say that the most important consequence of that decision is the relationships I have gained. I would not trade them for any amount of money, position, nor recognition. They are priceless to me and because of them, I am rich.
Here are the elements of my experience that I believe led to my success of a new lanugage:
1. Commitment- I created a commitment device that forced me to make it through the learning curve.
2. Apply the learning- I learned R in a real world application. No time for theory, fluff or ideals. I needed results.
3. Build support (and use it)- My colleague (mentor and dear friend) was with me every step of the way. I was (and still am) inspired by his willingness to invest in me.
4. Give back- I was/am humbled by the view atop the shoulders of giants on which I stood (and still stand). I never missed an opportunity to show my gratitude.
And, naturally, these core themes have been integrated into the workshop.
Commitment
R has a steep learning curve. But once you make it past the curve, you’re golden. Over the duration of the course, life is going to happen. Your boss is going to need something as of yesterday. You will want, no, need to skip a course. You will be tempted to do something the easy way- the way you have always done it- just to get it done. When that happens, you will have a choice. Are you serious about applying this learning, about changing the way you interact with your environment? How you respond to these decision points in the next 8 weeks will answer that question for you.
Here is a challenge, for the course of the workshop, instead of opening an excel sheet to start clicking buttons, use R. You will feel like you have duct tape wrapped around your fingers- it’s clumsy and painful. But, you will find that after 8 weeks, you will only open an excel sheet on your desktop with reluctance, impatience and a small amount of pity for the data, and the minds of those who work that data, being trapped within those little cells.
Believe me when I say, learning R is not bad… the whole process is actually pretty fun. Plus, the R Workshop is designed to lower the barriers of entry to almost negligible heights. I didn’t have this when I started R, but wish I did. Still, expect some discomfort.
Here is how much time you should budget toward your learning for each week (for the next 8 weeks):
1. One hour of workshop time
2. 15-30 minutes for meetings with mentors
3. One hour of project time
That is a total of 2.5 hours of your time a week, for the next 8 weeks.
Apply the Learning
All students in the Workshop will be expected to apply their learning to a project of their choice. The curriculum we put together is great. But, it is not enough. You must apply what we learn together to something in your world.
Thinking about investing in the stock market, but do not know when to buy in? Find a package with real time api functions and build a shiny app. Build email alerts at certain price thresholds for your favorite tickers.
Having trouble sleeping? Pull health, sleep and activity data from your iWatch and see if you can find some correlations. There’s more than a few packages for that.
Passionate about health equity? Connect to the CDW and play around with some ML or Regression models.
Work or play, big or small… how you apply it does not matter. What matters is that you apply it in a way that is meaningful to you. Going big and failing will get you further than playing it safe and succeeding. Be bold and see how far R can take you. I am not going to grade your project, nor pass/fail you. All I ask is that you do not cheat yourself from this opportunity (and excuse) to do something impossible (and stupid).
Build Support
In this course we will teach you how to access the resources you need to accomplish your goals.
Cohorts
The small cohort style of the Workshop is purposeful. When you run into a problem and need to chat with someone, go to your classmates first. Spin up a quick Teams session. Ask them to work through the problem with you. Hopefully you can depend on these relationships even after the workshop.
Mentors
I will provide a mentor. Your mentor is probably the most valuable asset within this course. Use them. Trust them. They can turn 6 hours of searching and problem solving into a 15 minute discussion. But, please stay responsible. Your mentor is not responsible for your learning. You are.
You will meet with your mentor once a week for the duration of the course. Use that time to develop and execute your project. Use them for meta-aspects of working within R- the type of lessons that only come from experience and cannot be found on the interweb.