Due to the opportunities and challenges that Big Data is able to solve and create, there is a lot of talk and speculation around this area. But on one point, all sources agree: a big data specialist is the profession of the future. Lisa, student at the University of the West of Scotland, shared her story: how she came to this field, what she studies as part of her master's program and what is interesting about studying in Scotland.
— Lisa, how did you start your way to a Scottish university and why did you choose this faculty?
— After studying physics at a Moscow university and working as a teacher in an ordinary Russian school for a year, I decided that the knowledge and experience I had received was not enough for life. Moreover, I was always disturbed by the fact that I did not study everything and there are many areas in which I am a complete zero. The area that has always attracted me with its complexity and “incomprehensibility” was programming.
During the year of teaching at school, in my free time, I began to slowly master the Python programming language, and also began to get involved in artificial intelligence, big data and deep learning. How to make a robot think and perform the simplest tasks - isn't that exciting? It seemed to me at the time that a new technological era was about to come on our heels, but (spoiler alert!) it really isn't.
Studying abroad has been a dream since high school. At the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University, it was quite difficult to go abroad for an exchange at least for a trimester, or even impossible. For 4 years of study there, I have not heard of such cases. Learning a language is also a dream. As you can see, I'm quite a dreamy person. Therefore, of all countries, I swept aside those in which English is not my native language, or rather, I left only the UK, the States and Canada.
Searching for information on the Internet and realizing the subsequent difficulty in obtaining an American visa, the cost of master's programs led me to some confusion (and it is quite difficult for Russian citizens to get a scholarship in training in America, as it seemed to me, from the articles of the guys and on official websites). The United Kingdom remained, London is a rather expensive city, but still I wanted some independence and independence. In Scotland, life is much cheaper, and the programs are in no way inferior to English ones. My university has campuses in Scotland and England.
— And here you are in the city of Paisley at the University of the West of Scotland… What does your typical school day look like?
You will be surprised, but we study only 3 times a week, for a maximum of 4 hours. Approximately it goes like this (don't forget, I'm a programmer after all, everything is different in other specialties):
10 am - 12 am - the first lecture, for example, Data Mining and Visualization.
Just a lecture on child pornography. Yes, the British are very fond of discussing issues that resonate in society without being ashamed.
12 am - 1 pm - lunch time. Alternatively, you can go to the university canteen - eat a sandwich or some hot superduper spicy Indian dish (Indians and Pakistanis have left a huge imprint on the national dishes of Scotland, one of them is chicken tikka masala - at this very word my stomach shudders as much this dish spaaaaysi). Well, or run home, which I did, it's cheaper and more useful. Fortunately, the university dormitory is located along the perimeter of the campus. It takes me 1-2 minutes to get home, depending on how tired I am from the lecture.
Each laboratory has two monitors at the desktop, on one you open a task, on the second you program.
1 pm - 3 pm - we sit in the laboratory and do some kind of task, a small tutorial is always attached, for example, a couple of examples and an explanation of how to use a neural network in the R programming language, and then this task itself. We have a maximum of one week to submit the assignment. That is, we understand the laboratory with a tutorial, ask questions to the assistants of the lecturer if necessary, and then, if we do not have time to start or complete the task, we take it home and finish it ourselves. As a rule, at the lecture we listen to the introductory part, for which, for example, we need a neural network, in the laboratory we already apply our skills.
- Are there any peculiarities in training in your specialty? Do you have group projects?
- Usually in Scottish graduate schools they do not take exams, but for some reason this rule did not apply to big data specialists. And we had to pass two exams in Data Mining and Visualization, as well as in Artificial Intelligence. Basically, we report on group projects of just 2-3 people.
Passed exams at the basketball stadium.
The most interesting project that I managed to participate in is the creation of a mobile application, as a final project on the subject of Mobile Networks and Smartphone Application. Having no experience in the Java programming language, as well as teamwork experience as such, I gathered a group of 2 excellent programmers (they had a lot of submitted projects behind them) and me. I acted not only as a designer (creating a logo, a general concept), but also as a developer, programming (thanks to Google and YouTube) a couple of cool features. This project was not only about how to code, it also taught us how to work in a team and listen to each member of the team. After all, only 2 weeks we thought what to start doing, each time faced with all sorts of bugs.
- Great experience! The ability to work in a team is a big plus for a future career. But let's go back to the very beginning ... Was it difficult for you to enter a university? What was required of you?
- It was necessary to pass one exam - IELTS, at least - 6.0 for each item. Even from the previous university, in my case from the Faculty of Physics, take 2 recommendations from teachers and answer 5 questions in writing for the university (like “Why do you want to study at our university”, “Why Scotland?” ..). Having received an offer from the university, you need to answer it and pay a deposit, then they send a CAS - a piece of paper with which you can go to the British embassy to apply for a student visa.
Then you can look for scholarships and funds that can pay for some part of the tuition or all of the tuition (although this is probably more difficult), and send applications. The page of each fund or organization has all the information and deadlines. In this case, the principle “the more the better” works. One organization will refuse, another will agree. Google will help in the search (something like “scottish scholarship for international students”). But again, it's better to do it in advance. And yes, there are almost no age restrictions.
My university.
— These 2 paragraphs seem very easy, but there is a lot of hard work behind them! Well done! Tell us a little about the place where you live now.
— I live in a student hostel. The hostel itself is located along the perimeter of the university campus, so it takes from 1 to 5 minutes to get to any classroom or laboratory. The hostel is an apartment with two rooms, a shared toilet and a kitchen. The rooms are large and spacious enough with a bed, a table, bedside tables, chairs and a wardrobe (I even had my own mini-room for a dressing room - just lucky).
My room.
The kitchen is also spacious with a table, chairs, a large worktop and a sofa. By the way, where my neighbor's friends often stayed for 3-4 days, a sort of Scottish friendship) Of course, the cost is more expensive if you look for apartments on the university campus than outside it, but then there will be a question with neighbors and electricity bills and water.
Photo of my dormitory taken from the university building.
- What are the prospects after graduation? How do you see your way forward?
- I remember when I entered the Faculty of Physics at Moscow State University, a poster “The best faculty of the best university in the country” hung over the admissions office, and after walking around the corner to the admissions office of the VMK (Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics), be surprised, but there was approximately the same poster. On the websites of universities, both English and Scottish, almost the same thing: a quick job search, cosmic salaries, etc.
I haven’t found a job yet, or rather I haven’t been searching, because I still have to defend my dissertation (we have three summer months for this, and the defense itself is in September. In September last year, I started studying, the master’s program lasts 1 year). I want to say that the prospects depend only on you and only in a small percentage of the chosen university. Finding a job, writing a dissertation, preparing for interviews, internships - these are my plans for the near future.
Do you plan to return to Russia later?
- You know, probably studying abroad gave me the most important thing - this feeling of home in all parts of our vast planet. And the second thing is that I got into everything Russian and try to support and use Russian technologies and novelties as much as possible, including Telegram (@Scottish_pie), where I run my channel about Scotland.
Being young and active, I want to visit as many countries as possible and gain as much experience as possible in communicating and working with foreigners. Their horizons and worldview change their attitude to life. Behind myself, I noticed that I became much kinder and not so categorical in dealing with people, I try not to “cut everyone one size fits all”.
Do I plan to return to Russia? — Of course, my parents and friends are here, I can't give up Russia, the country where I had my childhood, my first love and many funny situations.
- Well, then, I hope to see you :) Have you noticed that you have become kinder ... Did you feel any other changes in yourself after 9 months in another country?
- At the moment, it seems to me that some kind of spiritual channel has opened in me, either communication with Indians (they are super friendly!) I was so influenced (chakras are all business - ahah, joke), or away from my family, where you are left to yourself, to be closed and dissatisfied with life is not at all comme il faut. Mom says (heh, where without her) that I have become calmer and kinder, and more independent. I did not have high expectations for my personal development, as well as super-fast job search - all this is still in a slow, but process. BUT, of course, this is a tremendous experience to be alone in a foreign country and overcome difficulties, without which not a single undertaking can do) But this is already in another article 🙂
- Yes! Good luck with your dissertation and job search! Let's wait for the continuation of the story.
Source: habr.com