PAG: Professional Development

Updated 27/Jan/2023

I used to joke that my friend Jeff would attend every professional development course offered even if he took it last month. Today, you could say the same thing about me. Continuously learning about yourself and your field allows you to grow in new and different ways and ensures that you are always in the know. Thank you, Jeff.

We see professional development as the combination of an individual’s growth and learning new aspects of our field. While we attempt to balance these two areas, we know that an individual’s professional development is unique and based on their immediate and long term goals.

Mentoring

Often, people view mentoring as something that stops after graduate school or their Postdoc(s) or is only required of new employees or students. Depending on their experience with their mentor(s), the concept of a mentor can range from really good to really bad.

Within PAG, we believe mentoring is a life long endeavour and is the learning of new ideas and methods, counselling and consultation on how to navigate various aspects of their careers, and to gain a different perspective on shared experiences between those in the relationship. To be explicit, we expect that the mentor and mentee monicker will transition between those in the mentorship relationship.

The mentorship relationship is a safe place for both parties to ask questions, voice concerns, and be open and honest. Working from the perspective of “If I tell you the truth while being kind, can we be still be friends?” to help foster a compassionate, supportive, and trusting relationship. All mentorship meetings will take place outside of either individual’s office.

To help understand how we work and process experiences as an individual and how you best recieve constructive criticisms, we strongly encourage you to complete the “How I like to be Mentored” activity (available on Google Docs) for you to download (preferably as a Word document) and complete. To start the mentorship relationship it is ideal if these documents are shared and discussed.

Resources

The following are a collection of articles and books that we have read and helped inform our view of our work. They are organized based on the areas of Professional Development, About Data & Modelling, and Writing Code.

Professional Development (aka one’s self)

• Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love by Richard Sheridan Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp with John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books

About Data & Modelling

• The History of the Data Economy: The “History of the Data Economy” is a four part series from Significance Magazine and Impact and provides a good overview of how data became an important part of today’s world, how it used, and possible future implementations.
  • “Part I: The birth of customer insight” by Timandra Harkness DOI
  • “Part II: Analytics arrives” by Timandra Harkness DOI
  • “Part III: The new kings and queens of data” by Timandra Harkness DOI
  • “Part IV: The future” by Timandra Harkness DOI
• Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• Big Data: Does Size Matter? by Timandra Harkness (ebook only) Bloomsbury | Amazon | Apple Books
• The Address Book by Deirdre Mask Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us about Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books

Writing Code

Learning to Code

• A First Course in Statistical Programming with R 3rd Edition by W. John Braun & Duncan J. Murdoch Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books 1^st Edition | Apple Books 2^nd Edition
• Learn to Program 3rd Edition by Chris Pine Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books The book uses Ruby to teach the basics of coding. If you want an additional challenge, translating it to the coding language of interest is possible.

Coding Philosophy

• The Missing README: A Guide for the New Software Engineer by Chris Riccomini and Dmitriy Ryaboy buy this book from no starch press where you have the option to buy the ebook (PDF, Mobi, and ePub) OR the print book with the FREE ebook! | Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• Kill It with Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones) by Marianne Bellotti buy this book from no starch press where you have the option to buy the ebook (PDF, Mobi, and ePub) OR the print book with the FREE ebook! | Bookshop | Amazon | Apple Books
• 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts edited by Kevlin Henne O’Reilly | Bookshop | Amazon