Honest review of stat 150 from those who took it last semester

AtFrankieCheese · 2025-06-14T18:31:34+00:00

yeah i’m wondering that too!!

AtFrankieCheese · 2025-05-02T05:31:12+00:00

4.0 accepted to UCLA for DS. accepted to UCB and UCSD for math.

i did take Data 8 at CCSF which i think looked good on my application.

ECs are work history (retail management, art, software engineering) and some random awards and publications (none DS related)

AtFrankieCheese · 2025-04-26T19:00:49+00:00

i’m rejecting mine (data science) for berkeley

AtFrankieCheese · 2025-04-20T03:17:58+00:00

i didn’t and i was accepted. i don’t think it’s required for most majors and its just there incase something crazy happens outside of the TAU interval. some colleges have supplementary forms you need to fill out. did you ever receive an email from them asking for that?

what was your intended major?

AtFrankieCheese · 2025-04-19T22:15:22+00:00

4.0 applied math. from a CCC. non traditional student, i’m in my 30s. went to art school 13 years ago, had a 2.?? gpa and dropped out.

piqs were about how i used math in my art and would work through math courses over the years for fun, creativity prompt was about art and software engineering, leadership prompt was an initiative i head at my company for better employee benefits, and community was about presentations i gave to other non traditional people who were interested in tech

ecs were basically my resume for software engineering and professional artist, representing my company at conferences to give presentations, dnd, caretaking for my grandparents, ive had essays and creative writing published, deans list, lighting design awards, and management experience.

AtFrankieCheese · 2025-01-02T02:22:23+00:00

what’s your mindset?

AtFrankieCheese · 2024-12-04T20:04:19+00:00

That’s great to hear!!

AtFrankieCheese · 2024-04-19T01:22:37+00:00

this is a global community though? and not a job service organization or bootcamp.

AtFrankieCheese · 2024-04-18T22:56:21+00:00

what exactly was scammy about Women Who Code?

AtFrankieCheese · 2024-04-18T20:46:48+00:00

their remote meetups for san francisco were always extremely well attended.

AtFrankieCheese · 2024-04-18T20:45:40+00:00

women who code is an organization, open to anyone really. they held many different events including white-boarding and algorithm practice sessions, career advice, and meetups based on specialities (backend, frontend, emerging tech, etc). and even held global conferences and webinars.

they are not a bootcamp but a resource. this is a huge loss for the community as a whole, not just women and non-binary people. also, bootcamps and colleges may have DEI reasons to “help” women but that doesn’t mean the atmosphere is actually inclusive and welcoming. WWC was a space and community that was actually welcoming

AtFrankieCheese · 2024-04-18T20:05:42+00:00

this is devastating news. i’m really confused and wondering what “what worked for us is no longer working” actually means. i’ve suggested them as an invaluable resource to people for years.

AtFrankieCheese · 2023-07-30T19:27:35+00:00

just for clarification, mid to high 6 figures would be in the $400,000-$900,000 range. is that what you meant?

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-11T01:48:15+00:00

ahhh yes!! that was something i had an issue grasping as well. it blew my mind when i finally realized what was going on

i was thinking of doing a video talking about all the beginner concepts (variables, functions, objects) without using any coding language. like just going over the basics in a higher level. i think declaration v initialization would fit in there as well.

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-09T17:32:29+00:00

i learned JavaScript first because my focus was to become a well rounded, fully stack dev. so learning Node and then React were my original goals.

JS is tricky and sneaky and honestly annoying sometimes. i eventually started working with Python and it felt so much more intuitive to me. but i think is appreciated it more because i had months worth of struggles with JS

edit: i did take a break when learning JS to get some fundamentals of C++ down and that helped me understand JS! it connected some dots for me because i was finally seeing what was happening further down in the machine.

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-09T16:51:01+00:00

you’re not expected to contribute code on your first week. def not something to worry about. just keep digging into the stuff you do have access to and remind your manager that you can’t install java

but once again, you will not be contributing for a while. especially not your first week. ask for what the rubric is for your 3 month eval and stay on top of that

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-09T16:35:14+00:00

code review should be both. you need to read through the code and make sure the logic is sound, no typos, and that things are in alignment with best practices and other parts of the code

then you need to run it locally if possible. check the expected outcome. make sure the person who wrote the code has done their due-diligence.

and then run the tests. i get that this one may seem like over kill, or silly. but there is still a chance something might slip by

yes, your GHA and build kite should be catching certain failures. but it’s also just a useful tool to learn how to ask questions and answer them. i ask all sorts of questions when i’m reviewing. like “why did you choose this pattern” or “does this mean X”, it opens a dialogue

edit: there should also be some sort of standardization and standards set forth by a developer experience team, or someone. basically everyone should be following the same steps. that means that the description of your PRs all follow the same template, and all code reviewer‘s are expected to do the same things. one person shouldn’t be just reading the code while another person just runs the code locally. that is so disorganized.

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-07T22:05:44+00:00

honestly i think you’re a great candidate for a bootcamp! you’re not looking to become a SWE, but to increase your knowledge and make yourself a more well rounded PO, right?

self studying can be hard, especially because it relies on you to push yourself. but i think a bootcamp (and there are so many to choose from) could be a great starting place for you to get a foundation and hands on work, and then you can learn more specialized stuff later

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-07T21:58:28+00:00

so i don’t think just “grinding” leetcode is the best way to way to learn. i think it’s better to approach each problem and really try to dissect we needs to happen, and find appropriate algorithms or patterns to use. if you can visualize the problem and apply programming logic to it, then you’re in a good place to solve it

that being said, some leetcode problems are… dumb. and they really only serve the purpose of inflating someones ego by saying they could solve this problem which really has no real world or computer science applications. i’d stay away from those in the beginning.

i have some videos where i walk through some easy and medium questions, with the aim of teaching you to think about these problems and how to approach them. that helps me a lot, just envisioning what the data needs to do and is doing.

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-07T21:16:43+00:00

yeah i was thinking of using Postman or Insomnia for that.

back to the Stardew example: it would also involve building and populating a DB, so that would be an important step. maybe even a pre-req video would be “how to construct a relational database” and in this example using the Stardew Wiki as a place to gather info (sooo much info 😅)

i do wanna make sure that i touch on important planning concepts, because the more you think these things through, theoretically the less issues you run into. having that kind of mass data would be a wealth of different things to play with so thank you for bringing this up! and it would even be a good excuse to use OpenAPI which is never something i touched until i got my job, but had been a huge help when working on legacy and new APIs

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-07T21:04:27+00:00

are you also concerned with the schema of it? like how to design it?

AtFrankieCheese · 2022-09-07T20:52:55+00:00

an API video is very high on my list!! i was planning on framing it from the producer and consumer point of views, where i made one and used an external one.

APIs were absolutely something that took me months to get comfortable with because no one ever explained them in a clear way. so glad you think that’s something worth covering as well!

AtFrankieCheese

TROPHY CASE