From Pre-Med to $135K Data Analyst: Was it Worth it?

the next 4 months every night I was going home and spending like 4 hours learning Sequel and that the rest really is history so if I could go back I'd probably get something like computer science or statistics I was working as a data engineer at that time I was not passionate about that career code that chat gbt will spit out let's say is gets you 80% of the way there and even with further prompting it just can't do it I'm going to give you 30 seconds people who AR interested in becoming a data analyst let's

do it 30 second road map and tell you going to me I can time you hi everybody welcome back to another video in today's video we have a special guest who needs no introduction but he asked me to do one anyway today we have Alex the analyst that's not your full name that's not my real name now what's your real name Alex freeberg exactly so when you think of data analytics who is the first person you think of Alex the Analyst at least that's what I think of so I'm so excited that I'm first of

all I'm having a fan girl moment I'm getting to meet Alex in person I haven't told him I met him yesterday and I told him I'm not having a fan girl moment did I you did say that I said I'm not having a fan girl moment but I was actually having a fan girl moment so I was having a fanboy moment so great there you go awesome Alex thank you so much for joining me today I would love to learn more about your background you have a very unique story you did not become a data

analyst through a traditional route like a lot of people I think a lot of people who are watching my channel and I'm sure your channel as well like data analytics and data science is like a new space so you did not come to data analytics through a traditional path and you came through a very interesting path and you were telling me this morning and I was like amazed can you please tell everybody how did you got got introduced to data analytics why did you end up staying yeah no I have absolutely no background or or

anything related to data analytics I went to school for uh recreational therapy before that I was like Premed and nursing and I you know I was like that's not my thing with all the blood and everything so I was like I still want to help people um and I found recreational therapy and I was uh out in Dallas for an internship I was going to actually fly back to South Carolina uh where we are now and live with my parents and get my masters in occupational therapy and so right around when my internship was ending

I met a girl uh Tale As Old As Time like every plan that I had in my life was just like gone I was like I want to marry her um and so uh we got married and I needed money cuz now I had a family I was um you know I am a dad and I have a wife and so I got a job at a nonprofit basically being like like a helper uh I would help people get jobs or I'd cook food for them or I would you know clean clothes really anything that

they needed and at that nonprofit they had an opening for a data analyst uh it was a data collection specialist and analyst which I had never heard of but all it was was Excel work and I was like it's only Excel like how hard could it be but when I got in there I just really fell in love with like data collecting and and analyzing the data and it wasn't like super hard but I really liked it and then we were switching systems and a guy consultant came in and was like oh well do you

know SQL I had never heard of SQL I had no idea what it was and he was like well you really you really should learn that it's pretty important so like that night and then for the next four months every night I was going home and spending like four hours learning SQL and that the rest really is history because after that it I got like a true data analyst job using SQL and Tableau and Excel um and then uh another job after that um using like Cloud platforms like Azure and powerbi and and other other

tools that were just you know I never used before and so everything was so new to me and even to this day I still have like a really big passion for Learning and building and I haven't really lost that sense of like I got to keep learning um I just love it and so now I'm here and it's been yeah it's been over almost seven years now and so it's a very non-traditional route but like you said I've met so many people who are very similar backgrounds they're like I was a teacher I was a

nurse um I was an accountant and I just really like the data side of things and I switched into it um and now I'm fortunate enough to where I get to help a lot of those people by making content just like you do and get to help people kind of realize that they can do it um you don't have to have a degree in it necessarily you can use your experience that you have which is I think really powerful yeah no that's amazing can I ask you just one follow-up question you are a selftaught right

like you watch videos first of all like what platform did you use no I when I when I first started it was YouTube but I did spend some money on udem me um so I bought several courses and then I did buy some corsera okay um but other than that it really I mean like you say mostly self-taught at the beginning okay but then as I got into the work and like getting real jobs I had I did take on like mentors who like really taught me some more the advanced things um but as a

start completely selftaught for sure so so over the years like you have worked as a self-taught data analyst if you were to go back in time would you change anything like would cuz now data analytics career literally everybody who wants to get in Tech the first thing they think of data analyst there's so many degree programs there's like even bachelors and Masters yeah if you were to like do it all over again would you consider going traditional route versus selftaught route and were there any moments in your career where you felt like oh I wish

somebody had taught me that that's a good question I I I do say like if I if I could go back I would probably get a better degree a more relevant degree in Tech I just that wasn't my plan at the time I was going to go into like you know the healthcare route and so if I could go back I'd probably get something like computer science or statistics um statistics is a stretch because I was good at math but I don't know if I was like statistics good at math um so like I probably

would have gone computer science now that now being where I'm at I don't think it's a necessity though I don't think I H if I were to go back I don't think I'd be like I have to have a degree in this this I some there were some time some days where I'm like you know I probably could have done this like right out of high school like if I started learning the skills and really teaching myself and knowing what I know now um and kind of like following the plans that I set like on

my channel like here's how you can do it if I had follow that steps I think I could have done it even without a degree if you really have a lot of hustle and a lot of um kind of teach teach yourself style you don't have to invest a lot of money it's more about investing the time and the effort to really learn the skills and understand how to Market yourself well in like an interview and like for resumes and stuff I think you said something very powerful cuz when I was starting in my career

I always like had like I would look up these people like they are like passionate about their career I was not passionate I was working as a data engineer at that time I was not passionate about that career and there was one time I was sitting with my mentor and I'm like how do I find something that I'm passionate about do I need to quit my job go wander in the trees between the trees like what do I need to do uh and he said something really really special that has stuck with me he said

some people find their passion some people don't find their passion yeah and you just keep going and eventually I kept going and I figured out what I'm passionate about and what I like to do and I think this is something along the lines that you were saying as well that you figured out what you enjoy doing and there were mistakes some mistakes that you made along the lines but you eventually paved your path and ended up at a point where um where you are satisfied with where you take a lot of comfort and pride and

I I I think so like advice to anybody who's just starting out is like don't get hung up on that like you will figure it out eventually you don't have to like know all the pieces before you start your journey or go through your journey so oh I think I think in fact I say the vast majority of people when they first start out are not going to find like what they're passionate about because you just kind of figur it out as you go and so at the beginning you don't really know much yeah and

so you know you'll you'll join this team or that team or this company or that company it may not be the best fit but you kind of like through those experiences you'll find you'll find a good fit for yourself yeah yeah absolutely on the topic of carving your own path if you work in data and you haven't heard of data Camp then you're probably living under a rock okay jokes aside I personally love data camp and I have a ful year membership that I paid with my own money to learn data related skills such as

python SQL R stats and more and thanks to data camp for sponsoring this portion of the video so I can tell you more about it data cam can help you learn specific skills in data analytics and AI let's say you want to Learn Python but you're trying to focus on data analysis which means you want to learn pandas data Camp got you covered this specific course focuses on python pandas and teaches you how to analyze data using the pandas Library data Camp is also a great resource if you want to become a data analyst without

a degree program for example you can follow this data analyst career track which has series of courses covering specific data analytics skills and then you can take certification exams to be recognized as a data professional data camp offer monthly and yearly subscriptions and just for you all dat Camp is offering 25% discount if you use Link in the description below thanks dat cim for sponsoring this portion of the video and now let's go back to the video and ask some fun questions now we're going to jump into like some fun questions all right let's do

it and uh we're going to make sure like uh Alex tells us some jokes along the way and like gives us some spicy answers so my first question for you it's not doesn't have to be that spicy all right I'm ready okay your three favorite things about being a data analyst I really really like working with the tech so like I I love a good Tech stack I love digging in and using different tools I get like super excited about that some people they don't care they just want to use like Excel but I like

using the fancy stuff and like really you know kind of geeking out on that stuff so that's one thing is you get access to things that you wouldn't in like just like a normal person the second thing is and I know this is kind of counterintuitive to what I said earlier but I really do like working with people like people managing is very different than when I was an individual contributor on a team because when you're an individual contributor you're part of that team and you're not managing it and so as part of it I

liked um interacting with people and we all had a similar goal of what we're trying to accomplish with our company and with our work and so you know it there's a lot of camaraderie there and it just has like a side note I really do sometimes miss working in person like I'm fully remote now and have been for many years don't say that you're going to be canell there is a piece of me that I'm like I I miss every so often like being in in in uh person with people just because there is a

sense of like camaraderie there yeah um and then the third thing I will I think that I'm I like I have a sense of huge accomplishment and I get a sense of Pride when I solve problems yeah data analysis you're always solving problems it's like it's always a different puzzle and it's just with data so you know I I learned that about myself very quickly when I started doing data analysis at one of the first companies I worked with I was like I was like this is like a like I'm an investigator like I'm digging

in super super deep into different store procedures and different jobs and the DAT the pipelines and like looking at the raw data versus the transformed data and figuring and like when I figured it out I just like I I I got like this dopamine hit where I'm like this is awesome and so I think problem solving and having the that that kind of builtin uh uh system where I can just keep problem solving and problem solving and problem solving I love that that is that is probably the the top three things that I like about

it so you share your three favorite things teex stack people problem solving now your three least favorite thing and we want the truth right all right so there are and I've made videos about this so I'm not like this isn't anything that I haven't said before so I'm just prefacing that I thought I would be getting new content this is I mean I who knows if it's going to be the same thing but it's very different now cuz now I'm a consultant and I do my YouTube an analyst Builder and it's very um I get

to choose what I get to do so now 99% of what I do I enjoy like I get to choose exactly what I work on yeah back when I was a a data analyst I can put myself back in those shoes and I just remember there were so many meetings that was the first thing I hated okay hated is a strong word hated um I very did you that very strongly disliked meeting after meeting after meeting cuz like again I like I said ear I very much like sitting on my computer getting work done yeah

and when I can't do that consistently like I need a three-hour stretch where I have un undistracted work yeah you can do head work you can't really do that that much when you're in person the second thing is I don't and this is for anybody in any team anywhere you just you're dependent on a lot of people yeah data analysis is not a siloed field it's a support rule that's how I like to think about in in a way it is and you depend on a lot of different other people you can depend on data

Engineers database developers clients stakeholders getting back to you and you have to get feedback from them and you have to wait three four a week uh it it it's insane like I just want to like knock it out like there's a lot of different pieces that I like and pieces that I don't like and so there's kind of like it's like a double-edged sword I would say that the other piece I didn't really like like was being in person um being around people and so I've talked about that quite a few times that is something

that I very I miss very little like 5% of the time 95% of the time it it was the commuting to work being around people 24/7 and as an introvert I get drained after like two hours of talking to people and then I'd have to keep chugging through and then they want to have lunch together and that's not usually like my lunch together it's not usually My Vibe so it's very fringing but that was one just a lot of the social aspects and Reliance on other people and a job that in a lot of ways

was some of the most frustrating stuff so I'm going to give you 30 seconds okay and you're going to look at the camera and you're going to tell people who want interested in becoming a data analyst you're going to give them a road map let's do it 30 second road map and then tell are you going to time me I can time you so I'm going to time you for 30 second and you need to look at the camera and tell people who want to get into data analytics 30C road map and one video that

they can go watch on your channels get a detailed map sounds great I'm starting this 3 2 1 go the first thing that you need to do is you have to learn the skills so learn the skills SQL Excel and Tableau just start with those ones you don't have to venture into python you don't have to venture into Cloud platforms just yet you really need a strong resume so make sure that you cater your resume to data analytics doesn't matter what background you have you probably interact with data in some way how much time do

I have uh so the next thing you need to do is you need to work with recruiters highly recommend working with them instead of just splattering your resume everywhere not likely to happen and then you need to interview really well prep uh get ready for your technal interviews Bingo look at that exactly 30 seconds good job good job I should give you all the questions with timer yeah I can I can do it I can talk really fast awesome that was great thank you so much what what video they should watch on your channel um

I have a video called how to become a data analyst in 2024 so Forbes recently wrote an article uh where they said that data analyst jobs will be automated because of AI and I think their article was written around the time when Chad GPT launch code interpreter now called Advanced something Advanced analytics it's called it's called data analyst data literally called Data so rude yeah uh and they basically and people who are not in the industry and who haven't worked as data analysts probably read that article and they probably did not pursue data analyst career

and they probably went for something something else so I would like to hear your thoughts in terms of like first of all that article uh second the future of data analytics career especially when a lot of these tools are being launched for doing data analysis absolutely yeah first off I I've read that article I've read a bunch of other articles and I've talked to a lot of people in the industry and there are aspects of the article I actually agree with a lot of data analyst roles I would actually consider I wouldn't actually put them

in the data analyst bucket I actually put them more as like data entry clerks uh or data entry professionals a lot of those jobs require a lot of well data entry but a lot of repetitive and manual work AI is actually really good at the repetitive work the things that are not super complex and so to that article's point I actually agree with it um and there are a lot of data analyst jobs that are not super difficult a true data analyst's job though I think and what I would say is that's the majority of

the ad analyst jobs out there are actually much more complex than what AI can solve at this moment now there's going to be future durations future upgrades and improvements and you know we'll see in the future but I've been using AI very like a very Hands-On I've talked to a lot of people who are in managerial VP roles who are working with AI in their team and I I can honestly say there's so many limitations and issues that we You' think I encountered that they've encountered with it just around data analytics there are pieces that

it does well and but there's a lot of pieces that doesn't do well for example let's take coding coding is a somewhat is a smaller part of what data analysts do so let's say it's 25% even within that 25% the code that chat gbt will spit out let's say is gets you 80% of the way there it can't get you 100% And even with further prompting it just can't do it M and if it does do it to a pretty good extent the code usually isn't optimized for exactly what you need so I still even

to this day see it very much as a tool at the moment now it may cross a technological line where it gets to a point where it it's like you give it enough context it's going to know it perfect but I've tried giving it more context than I think it could possibly have ever wanted and it still couldn't solve a lot of these issues yeah and I'm not there's not a promotion but I I have a data learning platform called analyst Builder there's very hard questions on the platform I know for a fact that chat

gbt or these other ai ai systems aren't there yet yeah um I predict that they're going to get a little bit better probably in about five years to where we'll start being like okay let's revisit this you know 5 years down the road I don't see it even within the next two 3 four years getting anywhere where I'm like concerned I think there's going to be a big shift in the market in for data scientists data Engineers data analysts in all you know adjacent roles big shift in terms of AI will get you partially the

way there but it's your job to make sure it is it is definitely it how do I say it's the code needs to be functioning well chat gbd can spit out fairly good code but it may not be optimized for what you need right and so I just there's a lot of limitations to AI right now that I actually think as Government gets more involved as companies uh start trying to implement a lot more of it it's going to have Ripple effects for more issues down the road that's going to create technical debt that companies

are going to have to solve and hire more people for so I I'm a big big big believer that the technical world of our profession and data scientists data analyst SC uh Engineers is going to grow immensely over the next 10 years like there's going to be more opportunity in Tech than there has been since we had like the tech boom of the 2000s you know actually I've asked this question to a lot of people and I have noticed a trend like people who have worked in the industry have that experience M 100% say like

AI is not going to replace our job but people who haven't worked as a data analyst they they they will like try the chap chbt code interpretor or whatever it's called data analyst and they'll be like wow this is so cool because they haven't done cool things cool well it it is actually really impressive it is impressive yes but the thing is is let's just take data cleaning data cleaning is such a big part of our work so it is very tough for CH to get Chachi BD to clean data extreme like it's not even

possible I think so it's very very very difficult and I've done it like on small data sets but that's like really simple data that's not very complex yeah so when you take actually dirty data that is 10 times more dirty and more difficult to work with and you have to transform it to make it usable for your product or your client or whatever it is it it there's zero chance that it's going to be able to do it yeah and so as of right now and I keep saying that because you know five years down

the road it could change but chat PT's interpreter the data analyst interpreter it is really neat but anytime you start using a little bit more complex data than like a cleaned really neat data set it doesn't do a great job yeah and that's that's where I think a lot of people misunderstand like the threat most people see that as like well that's all data analysts do yeah but that's not all we do we do a lot more than that it's not only that it's like we do that's 25% is coding there's another 75% that we're

doing where that 25% it's the what it does at really well with if it's really pristine data yeah which is not real data um and so that's where I think a lot of people get confused if they don't have hands on experience yeah that's my general take on AI right now no fair and one thing I want to emphasize that you said earlier is that you tried with chpt tried to give H as much instruction as you could yeah you have you're a working professional you have worked as a data analyst you know what to

ask and a lot of the stakeholders that we work with they don't even know what they a right like so we have to like go back and forth ask them questions get to like actually the root cause of the problem and then often times the what work that we end up doing is like different than what they were asking because absolutely so I think Chad GPT generative AI is only going to be as good as the person asking it yeah and if it's going to stay like this then it has to be a working professional

asking the question right if at some point it becomes perfect that is L it's the verbatim almost what I talked about with Ken earlier like we were sitting right here and I was like you know I think as long as humans are involved and as long as AI isn't sentient mhm data data analysts are going to be safe once AI is as human as a as you and I well then maybe maybe we are screwed but right now I think we're fine I really like it though I'm a big believer in AI I don't want

anyone to believe that I don't like AI I actually am a big believer in it um and I think you need to start learning it you should start learning it yeah cuz uh what is the saying you won't be replaced by AI but somebody who's using AI will replace you right which beg which is a whole another conversation whole conversation about like the the future of like AI Engineers AI analysts AI scientists and so all these things that are you know just augmenting our work changing how we do the work it's the same work but

now we're using a with it yeah I think that that will be fairly common let's say like 15 10 15 years yeah we'll all be retired by then so doesn't matter there you go awesome well thank you so much for coming on my channel Alex I hope you enjoyed the conversation it was great yeah you were awesome you did not sing a song for me but I'll I'll I'll be okay you gave me the PM yeah I'll do that off camera okay that was good all right well thank you so much for watching I will

see you in the next video bye