Early this year, like many other days during the past year and a half, I was “googling” for some answer to a question that would allow me to continue with the task I had at hand at the time, and the question was:
“How to interpret the AFC, and PAFC plots?”
As the usual Google interface to show the answers in a computer screen took place, another and different “animation” unfolded:
“A theatrical like, yet pixelated animation disrupting the search results page was happening, the screen split in two, and the results page gave its position to a black screen, with some green text on it”
For a few seconds my brain couldn’t process what I was looking at, I thought it was a new “Doodle” about Star Wars, or Star Trek, and I even opened a new tab, in order to continue with my search, but as I was clicking the “new tab” button, with the corner of my eye I distinguished an intriguing word from the rest:
“Challenge” — in green color, pixelated art, and console text font.
I immediately went back to the page, and read through the whole text, this art style, and space comic book narrative hit the geek in me as I was reading it, and in a sort of mixed reactions (mostly disbelief), I finished reading it, and could not assimilate it, you have to understand that I was deeply concentrated on what I was doing, and this sudden and quick turn of events was not in my radar, I stayed astonished for a few seconds.
As unfortunately as it is, I didn’t took a print screen of it, but the short narrative paraphrased went something like this:
“We know the kinds like you, because we are like you, people who love challenges, would you like to take a challenge from us? By doing so you would help the galactic bunnies get rid of their problems”
After the aforementioned seconds of disbelief of what I was reading was implying (that Google was giving ME a challenge) I quickly signed up for the challenge.
Part of the interface when you accept the challenge
Now, lets address the issues I wrote on the title…
Part of the disbelief I wrote about in the previous section comes from the fact that I am not a professional programmer, nor I have a background in it, I am an Electronic Engineer, with a major in Telecommunications, and I have been working in telco for the past 16 years.
So why was I looking for the “interpretation of AFC and PACF plots”?
Well, because finishing 2019 I decided to shift careers paths, I decided to enter the wonderful world of Data Science, and in 2021 I enrolled in a Masters Degree in Data Science, and as part of an assignment I needed to interpret the meaning of the aforementioned plots, and like for the past eight months (at the moment of receiving the challenge) I have been searching in Google for many topics related with Data Science, coding, algorithms, Python, and all the skills, tools, papers, and the like needed to get better at it.
The “why” part
I failed at the coding challenge.
I was not prepared, nor I had the background to tackle it at the moment that I received it, but I committed yet another mistake, I took it any ways, without further improving my coding skills. I should have tried and improve my coding skills before hand.
The “what I learned” part
Get ready for challenges. Unless you’re master in the area of expertise surrounding the challenge, you need to prepare, and if like me, you’re not a daily coder (or a professional at the topic at hand), you need to prepare even more, research, read, and above all, because we’re talking about coding, you need to code, and a lot, if you want to start to tackle this kind of challenges the proper way.
Closing comments
Receiving this challenge has been the most rewarding thing that have happened to me professionally in the last year, and I learned A LOT! about coding while doing it, and I won’t lie to you, I wish I could have that opportunity again.
I reached the third challenge of the second level, so I guess I didn’t do that bad, did I?
Part of the interface that shows your progression
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