This Past Year For Me Has Been Crazy, Here Are The Top 3 Things

October 1, 2021, is the day I graduated from college with a major in Digital Cinematography.

When I finished, I knew Hollywood and big crews working on a set weren’t for me. I wanted to be able to tell a story in my own way and not follow the rules or a script. That’s when I found my love for documentaries.

Now, here’s where the story gets interesting.

I wanted to build a social platform for my content.

Coming from someone who never built anything tech-related, I had a lot of research to do.

I’d been working on this documentary project for about a year and the main thing on my mind was how can I get more people to see this. I knew most of my audience wasn’t the best with technology but if I could create a centralized hub where they could see everything, life would be easier.

Then it hit me.

Though I went in looking for one thing, my mind opened up into a whole new world that I couldn’t unsee. I saw the power of coding and the benefits of learning this amazing skill.

So, finally here are some of the things I’ve been learning.

Coding

I had no idea where to start.

One thing I noticed through the years was that Twitter was the space where a lot of tech people hung out. As most would I searched on Google for top influencers to follow and worked from their. Somehow I came across Sahil Lavingia(CEO of Gumroad). He stood out to me because I’m familiar with his company and love how he operates it. He was on a podcast talking about learning to code in Python.

So, I guess that’s a good place to begin this new journey. At this point, I’m so excited about all these new concepts and ideas, I’m not even thinking about the documentary at the moment.

Data Analyst, Data Scientist, or Data Engineer?

After watching some videos about the things Python can do, it’s time to choose where I want to focus my attention.

I kept hearing the terms Data Analyst, Data Scientist, and Data Engineer. It took me a couple of days to better understand the differences as they share a lot in common. I recognized becoming a Data Scientist was no small task and going to take some years of work to obtain that role. Data Engineer didn’t give me that spark or interest I was looking for. Data Analyst caught my attention with the focus on research, building dashboards, and finding insights.

So, I built my roadmap and for the next 8 months, I began teaching myself how to become a Data Analyst. I put together a portfolio and off to the job market we go. There were about 10 companies I would love to work for and the opportunity to learn from great people.

I realized how fast the market moves and getting a job was harder than I realized.

Most companies want years of experience for an entry-level role. They also switch around the terms where the job should be for a Data Scientist and not a Data Analyst. Now I can still apply to some companies and get compensated well but, I didn’t want to settle for less.

I needed to find something that was going to inspire me again.

Web3

By the time this article is released, I only became familiar with the term web3 a week ago. I don’t know what led me here but, immediately I became interested.

Now, I became aware of the industry about a year ago through NFTs and trading crypto. It was easy to understand the collecting aspect because I’m an artist myself and I saw a lot of designers getting into this like Bobby Hundreds. I still couldn't wrap my head around buying digital artwork, especially for the prices they were selling for.

So I began joining some discord servers to see what the hype was about and realized this might not be for me. It was easy to see most collections were pump and dump with no true value or community.

Now coming back to the present day I had no clue about DAOs, the creator economy, and communities that were actually trying to build something of purpose. Now I realized just like how I found out about coding, I had a lot of research to do.

This industry lit a spark in me that I haven’t had in a long time. I get excited every morning to wake up and get back to learning the possibilities of web3. What I love the most is that everyone is still trying to figure out what this technology can do. The things I’ve seen people build so far are mind-blowing and open up so many opportunities.

I’m only a week in I can only imagine where I’ll be a year from now.

As you can see this year so far has been crazy for me and we still have a couple of months left!

Life is amazing when you follow your curiosity. I never try to force myself to do anything. If it’s interesting to me and causes me to ask questions, it’s worth exploring. If I stuck to filmmaking, these opportunities wouldn’t have happened to me.

Now let’s not get it twisted, I’m still and will always be a filmmaker. The difference is I have new skills that allow me to see the world differently.

So, let’s start building!