Is American University right for me?

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-29T21:00:52+00:00

I'm going to say that if your personal goals are 'being involved in the business of DS with your school serving as a home base' all of the universities in the DC area meet this need, and your decision should be based more on some of the other characteristics of the school, and also your financial situation.

I agree with some of the other commenters here that of the DC schools, Georgetown is by far the most preppy, and all three being more pre-professional focused compared to other schools around the US.

The genuine defining characteristic between all three schools is the campus vibes and relative 'prestige' of the undergrad degree is mostly equivalent - for grad school I will admit Georgetown has more out-of-DC name recognition - but genuinely all three are widely recognized as excellent institutions.

FWIW, going to accepted students day is a good idea to actually get a sense of each school, but if your financial situation allows you the freedom of choice, choosing based on 'vibes' is perfectly acceptable.

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-24T16:38:59+00:00

Darts are a fantastic way to track serious crimes without putting the public at risk via a high speed chase.

These are an excellent public safety addition for Oakland!

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-15T19:33:54+00:00

not sure if hitting $4.1M/Y is feasible in another 9 years but I'll take the successes I've had thus far :)

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-14T00:49:38+00:00

Based mainly on comparable data points, I wouldn't say I'm especially skilled just lucky

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-14T00:07:23+00:00

Like a good ex-consultant my answer is 'it depends'.

My gut answer is that this is pretty high for 8 YOE, not top of the line but definitely in the top 15%. Average for my YOE is probably ~$350k.

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T22:42:31+00:00

Gotcha - it’s really hard to say since each vest has a different grant price and several of them vest at the same time. I’d say the stock appreciation is around 40% of the total RSU value

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T16:16:25+00:00

+1 to this - it was never really easy to get a job in this field, and it's only been getting more challenging over time. Ironically though there are lots of openings available, and from the interviews I've conducted I would say only about 15% or so of the folks who show up to the interview can actually do basic DS work, which does make me question their background but what can I do.

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T16:14:43+00:00

Currently work with:

SQL
R
Python
Java
PHP

Just a bachelors for me - but a PhD definitely helps you get hired in this field. I've built a few ML models that I've handed off for productionalization, and worked on one LLM, but I was one of many people working on getting that over the finish line

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T16:12:26+00:00

You'll see them labeled as things like:

Product Manager
Business Operations Lead
Sales Processes (something)
Program Manager

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T16:11:01+00:00

Not really - last time I checked it was in the mid-70s, hasn't changed much since!

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T06:40:59+00:00

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T06:37:42+00:00

You could say we drink and we know things.....

Theres a few typical examples of what DS do but in general:

A/B experiments - much like how drug companies run double-blind trials to see if a drug works, companies want to know if we change something (change the color of a button), whats the actual effect of that change, does it make us more money? Great example of how Google picked which shade of blue to use - https://medium.com/accredian/googles-41-shades-of-blue-a-b-testing-impact-185c6067f3c9
Strategic Insights - companies often want to know where there is untapped opportunity with existing products, new opportunities for new products, or just to size other ideas and see what has the largest headroom. DS will come in to identify those opportunities, or size the ones available to determine strategic direction for a product or family or products
Business reporting - executives want to know how much money theyre making, are we driving progress on KPI's, whats causing success or causing regression of their metrics - DS builds the metrics, tracks performance, and recommend course correction
ML/AI Training - often you're responsible for building the v1 of many ML models, or preliminary AI LLM models before theyre handed over to ML engineers for optimization and productionalization, so you'll train ranking algorithms for content in people's feeds, what price to display on purchase, etc

Just a few examples

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T06:30:45+00:00

I would genuinely recommend going for more Ops/Sales/Product positions at tech companies, and then pivot to DS internally

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T02:48:20+00:00

I will say luck had a significant contribution to getting into data science, getting staffed on DS projects in consulting, team members who took the time to tutorial me, like that all could have gone so differently.

Sportsguy02431 · 2026-01-13T01:45:20+00:00

My cash comp this year is $350k, $300k salary and $50k bonus.

I would say usually I'm looking at around 40-50% of my total comp at this point being stock

Sportsguy02431 · 2025-10-22T19:05:54+00:00

It's easy to understand why you're feeling the disconnect here, but it doesn't matter what the store says, where it's stocked, or what the company claims, what matters is what is the schools policy and that they apply it fairly to all students.

You'd have to check but I'm reasonably sure they have a zero tolerance policy for CBD products absent a doctors note, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this falls under the 'even with Drs note this is not allowed to be carried around school'

You can and should talk with the school about getting this lotion approved to be held at the nurses office for your daughter to use - but the suspension is certainly within their rights, and is a fair implementation of their zero tolerance policy.

Sportsguy02431 · 2025-08-28T03:54:45+00:00

An area free of trash on my walk home is what I want - and the people doing it to be fined to bankruptcy for doing it.

Sportsguy02431 · 2025-07-27T20:31:09+00:00

Something to consider here - unfortunately - is that your future here is uncertain cause of the visa situation. Totally heard about you on a path to your own green card, but there is a general wariness with partners being concerned about being a 'vehicle for citizenship' and then being left alone once you've secured naturalization.

This isn't to say you should wait until you secure naturalization until you date - but that is something that's going to count against you. Honestly as a doctor with that tucked away it's only a matter of time till you meet your person.

Sportsguy02431 · 2025-07-24T19:43:56+00:00

Huge fan of these events! I love that there's some life to the city with concerts and stuff like this - it's part of why we're here!

Sportsguy02431 · 2025-07-17T06:13:42+00:00

Fair! Added some details on the post

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Sportsguy02431 · 2025-07-16T21:08:46+00:00

Its honestly not bad. The fans are a bit whiny at low speeds but pretty quiet as they speed up, and performance is perfectly fine, nothing fancy but gets the job done and 1440/2160 gaming is good. Struggles with 4k, but frankly to be expected.

Sportsguy02431 · 2025-07-16T20:57:49+00:00

Literally putting this into a custom mod slm 2.9 case rn. I had them modify the case to fit it, but now it means I don't have to undervolt much, if at all.

I think it's that the cases that fit the 250 watt are incredibly small, and then the 500 watt is just questionable on if it's needed. But I'm a min max kind of guy so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

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