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Updates to Your Learning Experience on Coursera

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Updates to Your Learning Experience on Coursera

At Coursera, we’re always working on making your learning experience more rewarding than ever. Our latest updates are designed to provide you with tools that help you make progress on-the-go and stay on track with your courses.

New Updates on the Web

Notes & Highlighting

With this feature, you can highlight and save important parts of a video transcript, flag the corresponding time within the video, add custom notes, and easily return to anything you’ve highlighted.

Improved Grades View

The redesigned Grades page gives you a clear view of your grades, the current status of your assignments, and a list of the actions you need to take to keep making progress.

New Community

Ask other learners your questions, discuss topics that interest you, get helpful study tips, and much more. Log in to the Coursera Community using your Coursera account to join the conversation. To learn more about the Coursera Community, read this blog post.

New Updates on Your Mobile App

Video Player Improvements

We’ve added skip and rewind buttons to your mobile video player to help you move ahead or go backwards. You can also listen to audio tracks while your phone is locked, so you can follow your lectures when you’re on-the-go.

Reminders & Encouragement

We’re always looking for ways to help you stay motivated and on-track. Turn on push notifications to receive tips and inspiration that prompt you to dive back into your courses.

Coming Soon! Calendar Sync

Manage your time better by turning on calendar sync on your phone, and your assignment deadlines will appear your calendar. This feature will be available on the mobile and web learning experience soon.

We hope that you enjoy these updates to your learning experience on Coursera!

Ask a Data Engineer: Warby Parker Edition 👓

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Ask a Data Engineer: Warby Parker Edition 👓

wp-header

Codecademy’s very own Nick Duckwiler (left) and Ryan Tuck from Warby Parker (right) in our office. (📷: Mitch Boyer)

Last month, Codecademy and Warby Parker came together to work on a special Learn SQL from Scratch Capstone Project. It was during this time when I met Ryan Tuck, a Data Engineer at Warby, who played a major part in this partnership. So when he decided to drop by our office for the final QA round, I had to break out my notebook and ask some questions. Enjoy.

Hey Ryan, let’s start off with a question I’ve had for a while — what is a Data Engineer? (Is it similar to a Data Analyst or a Software Engineer?)

At Warby Parker, data engineers are responsible for creating and maintaining the plumbing required to support the data and reporting needs of the business. We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.

What languages/frameworks do you use at Warby?

On data engineering, we use Python as our general purpose programming language, as do most of the other teams in our Technology department. When it comes to databases, we use PostgreSQL for the majority of our SQL needs, and are beginning to use Amazon Athena and Google BigQuery for some of our larger datasets. We use Looker as our exclusive business intelligence entry point to all of this data.

What are some of the projects you worked on?

I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of of smart people in every department at our company to help them solve their varied data needs, from reconciling financial data with the Accounting team to automating and modeling standardized performance metrics for our team of over 200 customer experience advisors.

As part of a team of five supporting the data needs of a rapidly growing company, I’ve tried where possible to focus on helping our analysts solve their own problems. This includes helping people learn Python and commit to our codebase, guiding the creation of data models in SQL, and encouraging people to submit pull requests to add features in Looker, our BI tool.

Seeing dozens of otherwise “non-technical” colleagues opening up PRs on a daily basis, and consequently being part of the democratization of tech that we value at Warby Parker, is probably the most rewarding “project” I’ve been a part of.

One project finished recently during our first annual “Hackweek” is called Pipes, which allows anyone at the company to easily move large amounts of data from wherever to wherever (Looker, Google Sheets, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, etc) on a regular cadence, or manually through a simple one-line chatbot interface. The adoption has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking to grow this sort of tooling out even more.

“We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.”

What got you into the data field?

I’ve always been drawn to analytical fields like math, and became pretty proficient in Excel during some internships in college. Once I had learned to program and learned more about data science and its applications in artificial intelligence, I knew that anything I could do to immerse myself in the world of data would be a step in the right direction.

Three and a half years ago, I landed a job as a junior software engineer at Warby Parker not fully knowing what I was in for, but am so glad I got the opportunity to help build tools to support an interesting and ever-changing data-driven culture here.

Where did you learn SQL and Python?

I had a background in C++, and was exposed to Python through an Intro to Data Science course. When Warby Parker hired me onto the Data team in 2015, I had never written a SQL query in my life, but picked it up quickly and within a few months started up internal SQL training classes, which I still teach on a monthly basis.

What does your tattoo say?


The ultimate cheatsheet.

This is Bayes’ Theorem, which is an equation that describes how to update probabilities given new evidence. Two summers ago I worked on building a tool to help predict weekly fantasy football performance. Some colleagues suggested a Bayesian approach would be appropriate, since there aren’t really enough data points in an NFL season to be able to use statistical approaches that require larger datasets, and I’d want to regularly update my predictions after each player’s latest performance.

I did a deep dive into understanding the (simple) math underlying Bayes’ Theorem and came out of that experience with a whole new worldview, understanding my entire knowledge of the world as a big and intricate probabilistic model that I was continuously updating with every experience I ever have. It was pretty transformative, and I figured that was worth a tattoo.

What is a concept in SQL/Python that’s essential to your work?

Donald Knuth said, “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.” I’ve generally found this to be true, and try to live by it in my work. For example, I’ll generally prefer to keep a data model simple by rebuilding it for all time on a daily basis using a single SQL query instead of making a more complicated model that requires iteratively adding to a table, keeping track of state, updated timestamps, when something last ran, etc.

A wise man once said, “Duplicating data makes things go fast,” but databases are already impressively fast to begin with, without implementing anything to improve performance. Ultimately, I almost always approach a problem thinking about optimizing for my time over machine time, for readability over performance, and for introducing as little cognitive overhead as is required by the problem at hand. Only once performance issues or readability issues present themselves will some code be worth a rewrite.

Last question! Since you wrote Warby Parker’s internal SQL training courses, I know there gotta be some inner Curriculum Developer in you. Can you teach a SQL concept in 2 minutes?

Sure! Have you ever written a query that yields some result set and you think, “I’d love to query the stuff I just produced like it was a table?” Enter the WITH clause.

Suppose I have a mega query that gives the transaction summaries:

select
    transactions.date as transaction_date,
    sum(items.price) as total_cost,
    count(*) as number_of_items
from
    transactions
inner join
    customers
    on
    customers.id = transactions.customer_id
inner join
    transaction_items
    on
    transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
inner join
    items
    on
    items.id = transaction_items.item_id

Using WITH, I can create a temporary table within my query that I can SELECT from and treat it just like a regular old table.

I will put everything from the previous query in a parentheses and use WITH to give it the name transaction_summaries.

Then I’ll apply the date and customer filtering down below for a more readable query, to separate out all the JOIN logic from the actual WHERE filters that I want to apply on that data.

with transaction_summaries as (
  select
      transactions.date as transaction_date,
      sum(items.price) as total_cost,
      count(*) as number_of_items
  from
      transactions
  inner join
      customers
      on
      customers.id = transactions.customer_id
  inner join
      transaction_items
      on
      transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
  inner join
      items
      on
      items.id = transaction_items.item_id
)

select 
        * 
from 
        transaction_summaries
where 
        first_name = 'beyonce'
        and 
        transaction_date > '2018–01–01'
order by 
        total_cost desc
limit 
        5

If you’re familiar with subqueries, this does a similar thing but makes the SQL far more readable, even if your query isn’t quite as performant as it would have been. This is essentially an implementation of the mantra “Don’t Repeat Yourself” that’s common in the world of programming.

Incredible. And love the SQL styling! 😍

Huge shout out to Ryan and the whole Warby Parker team for making this partnership happen. Special hat tips for behind-the-scenes support from:

  • Lon Binder, Chief Technology Officer, Warby Parker
  • Maddie Tierney, Executive Assistant, Warby Parker
  • Kayla Robbins, Executive Assistant, Warby Parker
  • Kaki Read, Senior Communications Manager, Warby Parker
  • Isabel Seely, Senior Brand Manager, Warby Parker

It’s been an absolute pleasure. And of course, the fam at Codecademy. You know who you are. Couldn’t do it without you.

What Are Your Thoughts on ‘Snowplow Parents’?

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What Are Your Thoughts on ‘Snowplow Parents’?

Last week, a college admissions bribery scandal made the news. In fact, we asked students for their responses. Today, we ask about the parental behavior that may give rise to such situations.

How involved do you think parents should be in their children’s lives? What can young people do if they feel their parents are crossing lines in trying to ensure things like academic success, placement on sports teams and, yes, acceptance at their top-choice college or university?

In “How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood,” Claire Cain Miller and Jonah Engel Bromwich describe “snowplow parents” who, in trying to “keep their children’s futures obstacle-free,” prevent their children from learning necessary skills and having experiences that will help them prepare for challenges they’ll face in college and beyond. They write:

It starts early, when parents get on wait lists for elite preschools before their babies are born and try to make sure their toddlers are never compelled to do anything that may frustrate them. It gets more intense when school starts: running a forgotten assignment to school or calling a coach to request that their child make the team.

Later, it’s writing them an excuse if they procrastinate on schoolwork, paying a college counselor thousands of dollars to perfect their applications or calling their professors to argue about a grade.

… Learning to solve problems, take risks and overcome frustration are crucial life skills, many child development experts say, and if parents don’t let their children encounter failure, the children don’t acquire them. When a 3-year-old drops a dish and breaks it, she’s probably going to try not to drop it the next time. When a 20-year-old sleeps through a test, he’s probably not going to forget to set his alarm again.

Snowplowing has gone so far, they say, that many young people are in crisis, lacking these problem-solving skills and experiencing record rates of anxiety. There are now classes to teach children to practice failing, at college campuses around the country and even for preschoolers.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

— What, if anything, from the article resonates with you, either based on your experiences or on what you have witnessed with friends and classmates?

— Does anyone you know fit the description of a “snowplow parent”? If so, what examples can you give about the person’s words or actions to support your claim?

— Why do you think some parents try to shield their children from difficulty? Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages — both short- and long-term — that these children may have.

— What are some signs that parents should stop doing things like waking their children in the morning, interceding with coaches, teachers or employers, and setting up playdates? Or is there a certain age at which the child should no longer have such things happen?

— The article mentions Cathy Tran, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and the daughter of people who immigrated from Vietnam who did not attend college. Ms. Tran states, “I actually think that I have a sense of independence and confidence in myself in a way that some of my friends whose parents attended college might not have.” Do you think Ms. Tran’s experience might be common among other young people in her situation? Why or why not?

— In “Building Grit in Girls Through Mountain Biking,” another recent article about resilience and young people, A.C. Shilton writes about how mountain biking helps participants find strength in themselves, in part by having no place for parents to be involved:

Even better: Parents are often left sitting in cars at the trailhead. “Parents are parents,” she says, and every now and then one gets aggressive about his or her child’s performance. But as soon as the kids ride off and into the woods, they’re free to recreate on their own terms.

What they do, once they get into those woods, can be pretty empowering. “There’s a certain work ethic you have to have to be a mountain biker,” said Annika Peacock, who is now 15. “If there’s a section of the trail that’s really hard for me, I’ll go try it five more times. I say to myself, yes, yes, yes, I can do this.” And then the next day? “I go back and do it again.” She now competes against other teens as part of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, an organization working to bring mountain biking programs to high schools throughout the United States.

Annika’s mother says of her daughter, “She’s this petite little bundle of smiles, but she has this self-talk inside her that says ‘I can do this’, and she will ride and re-ride something until she gets it. There’s this resilience she’s trained in herself. She’s fierce.”

Are there any activities you’ve taken part in that are similarly empowering? To what degree, if at all, do those activities limit or prevent parental interference?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Word + Quiz: stanchion

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Word + Quiz: stanchion

: any vertical post or rod used as a support or barrier

_________

The word stanchion has appeared in eight articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 21 in “Glenstone, a Private Art Xanadu, Invests $200 Million in a Public Vision” by Robin Pogrebin:

Glenstone aims to admit about 400 people a day, to ensure that visitors can have a contemplative experience. Instagram photos are discouraged indoors, where the space has a naturally lit, Zen-like serenity, with benches for resting designed by Mr. Puryear and meandering paths.

Indeed, the collectors said they wanted plenty of breathing room — no “Mona Lisa” crowds or selfie sticks, very little wall text and no stanchions forcing people to keep their distance from the art. The message to visitors is clear. “Look — really use your eyes,” Ms. Rales said. “Allow that to be your primary experience.”

_________

How Should Parents Talk to Their Children About Drugs?

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How Should Parents Talk to Their Children About Drugs?

Have your parents ever talked to you about drugs? What did they say? What questions did they ask? Who initiated the conversation? Were the discussions helpful? Welcomed? Embarrassing? Enlightening?

In “How to Talk to Your Kids About Drugs When Everyone Is Doing Them,” David Hochman writes:

The assignment was to write a four-page research paper on any biology topic. My son, Sebastian, is a high school freshman, and it was his first real chance to shine. I expected him to pick something like photosynthesis. He went with psychedelic drugs instead.

Let me tell you what would have happened if I had made that choice as a ninth-grader: I would have been grounded until graduation. In northeastern Pennsylvania, where I grew up, my mother worked for the county commission on drug and alcohol abuse, and she could literally smell stoned people. The breath of a pothead, she warned, as if hunting dragons, has the odorousness of burned rope.

One night she shook me awake after finding a tiny tube of Krazy Glue under the seats of her Buick Skyhawk.

“Are you sniffing this stuff to get high?” she said.

I wasn’t. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I cried.

In my mom’s defense, the narc approach was more common back then. In 1984, when I was in high school, Nancy Reagan first uttered the phrase “Just say no” after a student asked what to do if friends offered her funny cigarettes. Later, the public ad campaign “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” made us believe our teenage minds would be fried — sunny side up — if we even thought about weed.

The article continues:

My struggle is to update the proactive messaging for the age of the legal buzz. I don’t care that every other billboard in Los Angeles makes casual drug use look as harmless as hailing a Lyft; I don’t want my child messing with his still-developing brain and body. I don’t want him self-medicating to escape. I definitely don’t want him Juuling, snorting, dosing or dabbing while driving. I also don’t want to wait until his grades tank, and I catch him gorging on raw cookie dough and “Dark Side of the Moon” before stepping in. (I know this makes me sound very old-fashioned.)

That’s why I created “prehab.”

If rehab is a way to recover from drug addiction, prehab is a program designed (by me, at least) to avert the whole mess in the first place. It’s like pulling a Marty McFly with your future party self, pre-empting poor decisions way before you’re drunk texting your ex and sleeping through Mondays. So I enrolled Sebastian as the test case.

Eventually the author comes to question his prehab creation:

I made a dad joke about not lighting up, but Sebastian wasn’t laughing. He looked at me and said, “I actually understand everything you’re telling me. If it makes any difference to you, I’m not really interested in trying drugs. But that could change someday. I really don’t know. For now, can we be done talking about this?”

It hit me in that moment that Sebastian wasn’t the one needing prehab. I was. I’d been so focused on finding the formula for guiding him down the right path that I forgot that he’s the only one who can make these decisions. My task isn’t to steer him around every bong and backyard keg gathering for the rest of his childhood. It’s to be there for him, to set basic guidelines. I also want to support him in figuring out what he truly enjoys, what he dreams about for his future, what he needs more of — and less of — from me. I’d do anything to help him make the most of this one shot he’s got.

Above all, prehab is about letting go. I can talk to Sebastian about drugs until the psychedelic cows come home but I can’t control his future, and why would I want to? Even if he ends up experimenting, I need to have the faith that he’ll be fine. Would it have done John Lennon’s father any good to worry about his kid’s toking habits? Would I be typing on this Apple computer if Steve Jobs just said no to LSD?

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

— How should parents talk to their children about drugs, alcohol and tobacco? What do you think are the most and least effective ways parents can talk to their children about this issue? Why?

— How have your parents talked to you about drugs? Were these conversations effective or helpful? How open and honest were they? Did your parents take the “narc approach” Mr. Hochman ascribes to his mother? Or did they try more of the “prehab” approach Mr. Hochman used with his son?

— Do you feel comfortable turning to your parents with questions about drugs, alcohol and tobacco? Do you think it is easier to talk to parents about drugs now versus when your parents were growing up?

— What conversation do you wish you could have with your parents about drugs?

— What do you think of Mr. Hochman’s advice to parents? Do you think parents need to let go and have faith that their children will be fine? Or do they need to provide direct teaching, guidance and rules around drugs?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

What Students Are Saying About: Female Superheroes, Being Left Out and Their Dream Homes

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What Students Are Saying About: Female Superheroes, Being Left Out and Their Dream Homes

After reading over 100 comments, we found out that Ms. Reed is not alone. Many students had a painful story to tell about being excluded, whether it was a memory from first grade or a slight that stung just last week. Below, their stories — of being left out, of doing the leaving out themselves, and of learning hard but useful lessons from the experience.

It hurts.

Statistics show how social media can even increase levels in anxiety and depression which in my opinion, is very accurate. It’s hard not to feel even a little disappointed when you’re scrolling and you see a picture of a group of people from your school, smiling left to right. Then you look around to see your lonely room and you can compare yourself to the people on the internet.

— Audrey E., Hoggard High School, Wilmington NC

My usual Friday nights are absolutely miserable. I usually spend it sitting on my bed reading or stuck in my bedroom fiddling with my robot. I spend these nights alone, kept company by my mind solely. But that’s not the miserable part. Being alone is something that I have become used to, and started to take a liking to. The bad part is when my parents ask what my friends are doing, and I am always forced to respond with “I don’t know.” In their voice and faces after I say that, I see, hear, and feel sadness, and it seeps into my mind. It makes me believe that I have no friends, and that I socially amount to nothing.

When someone else points out your loneliness, it makes it 100 times worse. Just recently, I was a part of a group conversation. A few jokes were made that I did not understand at all, and I seemed to be the only one not getting. I realized that they all had a group chat, all 13 of them. I immediately felt like in their minds, they didn’t really consider me as one of them, or at least not good enough to be on the chat. It made me feel worthless and unimportant. I have not, and do not plan on, making a comment, because what if they said no? Or worse, said yes with hesitation? The even slight possibility of social humiliation is enough for me to say nothing.

— Albert, Wilhelmy

When you tell your friends an idea of having a bonfire in the summer, suddenly your friends had gone ghost, then you watch your friends on social media at the bonfire, without you. It will make you have an internal feeling of not having anyone, isolation, abandonment. Leaving you to assume that you are not good enough to hang with the crew, trying to pretend like you are not bothered by the isolation. The feeling of isolation and abandonment will make you think about walking right out of their lives all from betrayal.

— Darnasia Shields, Lakewood,OH.

“Bye Marta, Chiara and Ali, I hope you guys have a great weekend.”

These three girls were what I considered best friends for most of my life. ”Come on girls, we are going to be late to get parking space at the beach.” My grandpa drove us to the beach on Friday afternoons and quickly, this became our tradition. When the day of his passing came around, they were the first ones there to visit me at the hospital.From that point on, I knew friendship couldn’t get better than this.I was walking down the carline opening the door to my moms car, I turned around to realize that Marta’s car had two other people in it, even though she had told me her weekend was going to be a “girls trip” with her sister Gaia, at a beach house. I was convinced that it was Gaia’s friends last minute deciding to go on the beach trip. I soon realized I was too blinded by the “best friend promises.” I checked instagram as a new post appeared on my feed. “Wouldn’t want to hang out with any other people.”-Marta. This quote was captioned under a picture of the beach spot my grandfather always brought all three of us to. My heart shattered in a million pieces because I felt like I lost my three best friends. They ruined the only place left that reminded me of my grandfather. We all lost a part of ourselves that day.

— Michelle Gargagliano, Hoggard High School, Wilmington, NC

Recently, I came to school and met my friends as usual. It was a Monday, and I thought it had been a normal weekend, with no big plans or parties, but I was wrong. My friend came up to me, showing me a video of her and some of our other friends. “Look,” She said, “We went bowling on Saturday. It was so much fun!” I looked at the video, laughed, and tried to shrug it off. It didn’t work. I kept thinking about it, wondering why I wasn’t invited. I knew I shouldn’t dwell on it, but I couldn’t let it go. I felt that short moment of sadness that makes you feel inferior. I know I have been left out before, and I know I will be many more times in my life. I only hope I will learn to get over it, and cherish having friends, even if I don’t spend every weekend with them.

— Emily Curtis, Hoggard High School, NC

Skills WANTED

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Skills WANTED

How often have you thought about your boss in this way – “How did they get the ability to manage, people?”  OR “As a leader, they stink.” – Oh, if you are the boss, just know some folks think you can’t lead, your welcome.

Anyway,  the fact of the matter is there is way too much of leadership development and leadership this and that content.  I know, you are going to say, that placing folks on the leadership development plan can only exist with leadership content.  Well, look at the leaders at your company.  How did that turn out?

Fun Fact

A Gallup Poll in 2016 found only 18% of managers demonstrated an aptitude for effectively managing.

No word on how many of them took at least one course in leadership development.

This post, though isn’t about leadership development, it is about digital and data skills, or more importantly, the lack thereof in today’s content, which will be needed in the coming years for all employees. 

Data To Think About

  • 50% in Hospitality, Retail and Telecom are concerned about their technical skill levels (HR Dive, 2019)
  • The most important skill in tech leadership is scenario planning (Forbes, March 2019)

Read various sites and it is data knowledge, as in how to handle the data, data science, data modeling and validation.  Data segmentation appears too.  

We are in the age of as one pundit put it “4th industrial revolution.”  And this fourth industrial revolution is all about digital.  The digital economy, which comes with a skill set that many folks are lacking in the workplace –  digital skills.

Content is a Commodity but

Go to any content provider (okay most of them) and you will found leadership, business, safety, communication, customer service, compliance and some types of software training.  Maybe, you will find specifics for legal or medical or even construction.

But where is the content related the skills folks need based on the digital economy?

Where is the content that trains people on technical skill sets?  Sure you can watch a video on Salesforce CRM or Lotus 1-2-3, but people learn best when the content is interactive and mimics the product.

Where is the content for the future data scientists?  The people at your workplace that you see as not future leaders, but future drivers for the next decade?   Where is the content to assure that someone who is worried about losing their job due to lack of technical skills, is provided the opportunity to select and learn various technical skills?

How often do you come across content related to multiculturalism in your workplace? The content I’ve seen lacks anything of value. Static. Text. That no one will read or retain or synthesize.

And yet, we live today in a global village and one that is multicultural. 

With the digital age people often believe that the professional workers are the only people that need to know this.  I say, wrong.  Anyone at your workplace, whether they are in the warehouse, mail room, driver, part or full-time needs digital skill sets.  Part of the power of soft skills learning is recognizing that you are providing knowledge for your employee’s life, not just at the work place.

Depending on the expert, the number of places people will work at  in their lifetime is anywhere from eight to 10.  Eight to 10 workplaces.  While the data often points to the millennials, I can attest at a GenX person, that before launching my own firm, I worked at eight different companies, two high schools and one university. 

Most people that I know, stay one to two years and then bolt for what they hope will be a better job than the one they currently have. 

Yet too many companies focus only on the skills the person needs in their workplace – but here is the kicker – the need that company perceives NOT the needs of the digital economy that the company exists within.

Foreign Language anyone?

I can count on my fingers how many content vendors offer courses to teach folks a foreign language.   Rosetta Stone recently dived into the adding their courses to course marketplaces in the learning system space.  But the other players?  No. 

And yet, there are plenty of people out there who pay $$ to learn a foreign language on their own, regardless if it is via the web or a mobile app on their smartphone or tablet.

So where is it when it comes to the content as a whole that exist in the content provider repertoire? Because if you haven’t been paying attention, your world isn’t just “My Small town” anymore.  In the digital economy, knowing another language is a huge plus, especially if it is a language that you can utilize in either your job or personal life.

I note personal life, because you are training people. And people are interested in more than just learning how to put a widget into a box.  A well-rounded employee is far better than an employee whose only knowledge is tied to their job role and nothing more.

Fun Fact

In a recent study from Yoh,

  • 75% of Americans would hire a candidate equipped with soft skills but lacking experience or qualifications when the perfect candidate is nowhere to be found.
  • 13% of respondents said they would most likely hire candidates who have the desired experience and qualifications but lack such soft skills

While it is true

That time-management, interpersonal, communication are necessary skills, they are not what will make Steve move up the job chain.

Let’s say Steve is a remote worker. He works from home.  He has good time management skills, an effective communicator and is well-liked by customers and his fellow employees.  But Steve has a challenge.   He wants to be more.  He wants to stand out. He wants to be recognized by his bosses, which then might open up the door for him, for future opportunities in the company.

Steve needs a new set of skills, because he will need to be his own cheerleader, his own “look at me” type of person in a professional way.  He isn’t going to find that skill in a leadership development course nor in interpersonal.  

He will find though in content that is designed specifically for folks seeking that “self-assurance” and “diplomacy” to achieve that.  Some people refer to it as self-motivation, and yeah, I can see that – but there is more to it.

Content Providers are becoming

To broad in terms of the output of content, which is another reason why it has become a commodity and as such is impacting poorly in the skills we need in the next decade.

Focus – Focus – Focus

I always hear how retail has high turnover. And while there are various reasons for it, one that comes thru is the lack of personal and professional development.  Come to think about it, lack of personal and professional is a key factor on why people in all industries leave their jobs.

They want the training.   And yet, when we provide them with the content it isn’t for life situations, rather it is more in the general categories that so many providers offer. 

In the digital economy, the need for life situations is there, and as such the content needs to be available for it.

And yet, I rarely find it with content providers.  

Skills are _______

Before you can have skill ratings, competencies even an algorithm tied to skills, you need to recognize where we are today in 2019.

Content created in 2005 is not the same as what is needed today.   Even if the perception that the job role is the same as it always has been, the skills to do that job have changed.  Back in 2005, not many folks had a smartphone.  Now, they do.

Back in 2005, people could still live in their bubble, away from the global village.  Not anymore.  

Social media was quite small in terms of a footprint.  There wasn’t YouTube or Facebook. 

The skills needed in 2014 for any job role is different today – and yet, we still select courses (content) that was built back in that day and age.  I know of a well-known content provider who still has content from the early 2000’s sitting on their servers (along with more recent content).

Bottom Line.

Don’t just think about today

Think about tomorrow and the day after that and so forth.

With each passing day, new skills are needed. 

20 years ago automation existed, but it wasn’t impacting the mining industry as it is today, nor numerous other industries that relied more on people and now more on machines.

And it is only going to continue. Robots will replace people – that is a reality.  Some form of A.I. will replace either the job, the person’s job role or the person’s responsibilities. 

Rather than just “sigh” and say we can’t do anything about it, I say you can.

Look to what skills will be needed, and start providing those skills in the content that you offer to your employees.

Ignore the usual mantra of a happy employee is a productive employee (because it is true), and instead focus on your new mantra

Soft skills are skills that will improve your employee’s opportunities

In today’s digital economy

And their life

In tomorrow’s world.

E-Learning 24/7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Real-World Use Cases for Algorithms You’ll Learn With Penn’s MCIT Online

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3 Real-World Use Cases for Algorithms You’ll Learn With Penn’s MCIT Online

In recent years, “algorithm” has gone from a niche word relevant mostly to computer scientists to an essential term for understanding how our data-rich world works. And as the use of algorithms becomes pervasive, a firm grasp of how to use them has become a major competitive advantage.

The online Master of Computer and Information Technology (MCIT) degree from the University of Pennsylvania is tailored for non-computer science majors who want to acquire  proficiency with algorithms, programming, and other computing skills. Let’s look at three examples of how algorithms covered in the program are used in the real world:

Low-cost DNA sequencing has opened up new possibilities for medicine, offering the potential to diagnose and treat the growing number of diseases with genetic components. However, merely  sequencing the DNA isn’t enough to determine the genes that cause some disease. With 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, algorithms are essential for biomedical researchers making sense of today’s vast landscape of genetic data.

Dynamic programming algorithms have been deployed since the early 1970’s for critical tasks such as DNA sequence alignment, protein folding, RNA structure prediction, and protein-DNA binding. Today, biomedical researchers rely on programs like BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) and Clustal to compare DNA sequences against relevant databases. Publications involving BLAST and/or Clustal rank among the most-cited scientific papers of all time.

Synthesizing new chemicals is a similarly complicated task. How can one evaluate the trillions of synthesis pathways and millions of existing chemicals to identify those that are likely to be efficient and cost-effective?

The software program Chematica, hailed as “an internet for chemistry” upon its release in 2012, provides a solution using optimization algorithms to predict viable molecular synthesis pathways. Chemists can specify molecules using chemical names, registry numbers, or drawings of the molecule diagrams. Researchers have also demonstrated how to adapt Chematica algorithms to avoid synthesis pathways that have already been patented.This further boosts its usefulness for commercial applications.

Algorithms aren’t just for the hard sciences. We’re living in an era of unprecedented access to arts and culture that allows us to dive into archives of books, TV shows, movies, and music from all over the world in seconds.With humanity’s accumulated, cultural output now available at our fingertips, we face a new problem: how do we quickly find what we want to watch, read, or listen to at any given moment?

Providing automated and compelling cultural curation has become a huge business.ne of the best examples of a successful use of algorithms in this area is Spotify. In particular, its Discover Weekly feature is popular — it delivers listeners customized playlists of songs they haven’t heard but are likely to enjoy. Discovery Weekly and similar services rely on collaborative filtering algorithms derived from graph theory to map preferences and predict what users enjoy.

These are just three examples of how algorithms are creating new possibilities for a broad range of fields. MCIT Online will help students make high-impact contributions like the ones described, using the expertise they will acquire in dynamic programming, graph theory, optimization algorithms, and many other areas of computer science.

Ask a Data Engineer: Warby Parker Edition 👓

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Ask a Data Engineer: Warby Parker Edition 👓

wp-header

Codecademy’s very own Nick Duckwiler (left) and Ryan Tuck from Warby Parker (right) in our office. (📷: Mitch Boyer)

Last month, Codecademy and Warby Parker came together to work on a special Learn SQL from Scratch Capstone Project. It was during this time when I met Ryan Tuck, a Data Engineer at Warby, who played a major part in this partnership. So when he decided to drop by our office for the final QA round, I had to break out my notebook and ask some questions. Enjoy.

Hey Ryan, let’s start off with a question I’ve had for a while — what is a Data Engineer? (Is it similar to a Data Analyst or a Software Engineer?)

At Warby Parker, data engineers are responsible for creating and maintaining the plumbing required to support the data and reporting needs of the business. We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.

What languages/frameworks do you use at Warby?

On data engineering, we use Python as our general purpose programming language, as do most of the other teams in our Technology department. When it comes to databases, we use PostgreSQL for the majority of our SQL needs, and are beginning to use Amazon Athena and Google BigQuery for some of our larger datasets. We use Looker as our exclusive business intelligence entry point to all of this data.

What are some of the projects you worked on?

I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of of smart people in every department at our company to help them solve their varied data needs, from reconciling financial data with the Accounting team to automating and modeling standardized performance metrics for our team of over 200 customer experience advisors.

As part of a team of five supporting the data needs of a rapidly growing company, I’ve tried where possible to focus on helping our analysts solve their own problems. This includes helping people learn Python and commit to our codebase, guiding the creation of data models in SQL, and encouraging people to submit pull requests to add features in Looker, our BI tool.

Seeing dozens of otherwise “non-technical” colleagues opening up PRs on a daily basis, and consequently being part of the democratization of tech that we value at Warby Parker, is probably the most rewarding “project” I’ve been a part of.

One project finished recently during our first annual “Hackweek” is called Pipes, which allows anyone at the company to easily move large amounts of data from wherever to wherever (Looker, Google Sheets, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, etc) on a regular cadence, or manually through a simple one-line chatbot interface. The adoption has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking to grow this sort of tooling out even more.

“We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.”

What got you into the data field?

I’ve always been drawn to analytical fields like math, and became pretty proficient in Excel during some internships in college. Once I had learned to program and learned more about data science and its applications in artificial intelligence, I knew that anything I could do to immerse myself in the world of data would be a step in the right direction.

Three and a half years ago, I landed a job as a junior software engineer at Warby Parker not fully knowing what I was in for, but am so glad I got the opportunity to help build tools to support an interesting and ever-changing data-driven culture here.

Where did you learn SQL and Python?

I had a background in C++, and was exposed to Python through an Intro to Data Science course. When Warby Parker hired me onto the Data team in 2015, I had never written a SQL query in my life, but picked it up quickly and within a few months started up internal SQL training classes, which I still teach on a monthly basis.

What does your tattoo say?


The ultimate cheatsheet.

This is Bayes’ Theorem, which is an equation that describes how to update probabilities given new evidence. Two summers ago I worked on building a tool to help predict weekly fantasy football performance. Some colleagues suggested a Bayesian approach would be appropriate, since there aren’t really enough data points in an NFL season to be able to use statistical approaches that require larger datasets, and I’d want to regularly update my predictions after each player’s latest performance.

I did a deep dive into understanding the (simple) math underlying Bayes’ Theorem and came out of that experience with a whole new worldview, understanding my entire knowledge of the world as a big and intricate probabilistic model that I was continuously updating with every experience I ever have. It was pretty transformative, and I figured that was worth a tattoo.

What is a concept in SQL/Python that’s essential to your work?

Donald Knuth said, “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.” I’ve generally found this to be true, and try to live by it in my work. For example, I’ll generally prefer to keep a data model simple by rebuilding it for all time on a daily basis using a single SQL query instead of making a more complicated model that requires iteratively adding to a table, keeping track of state, updated timestamps, when something last ran, etc.

A wise man once said, “Duplicating data makes things go fast,” but databases are already impressively fast to begin with, without implementing anything to improve performance. Ultimately, I almost always approach a problem thinking about optimizing for my time over machine time, for readability over performance, and for introducing as little cognitive overhead as is required by the problem at hand. Only once performance issues or readability issues present themselves will some code be worth a rewrite.

Last question! Since you wrote Warby Parker’s internal SQL training courses, I know there gotta be some inner Curriculum Developer in you. Can you teach a SQL concept in 2 minutes?

Sure! Have you ever written a query that yields some result set and you think, “I’d love to query the stuff I just produced like it was a table?” Enter the WITH clause.

Suppose I have a mega query that gives the transaction summaries:

select
    transactions.date as transaction_date,
    sum(items.price) as total_cost,
    count(*) as number_of_items
from
    transactions
inner join
    customers
    on
    customers.id = transactions.customer_id
inner join
    transaction_items
    on
    transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
inner join
    items
    on
    items.id = transaction_items.item_id

Using WITH, I can create a temporary table within my query that I can SELECT from and treat it just like a regular old table.

I will put everything from the previous query in a parentheses and use WITH to give it the name transaction_summaries.

Then I’ll apply the date and customer filtering down below for a more readable query, to separate out all the JOIN logic from the actual WHERE filters that I want to apply on that data.

with transaction_summaries as (
  select
      transactions.date as transaction_date,
      sum(items.price) as total_cost,
      count(*) as number_of_items
  from
      transactions
  inner join
      customers
      on
      customers.id = transactions.customer_id
  inner join
      transaction_items
      on
      transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
  inner join
      items
      on
      items.id = transaction_items.item_id
)

select 
        * 
from 
        transaction_summaries
where 
        first_name = 'beyonce'
        and 
        transaction_date > '2018–01–01'
order by 
        total_cost desc
limit 
        5

If you’re familiar with subqueries, this does a similar thing but makes the SQL far more readable, even if your query isn’t quite as performant as it would have been. This is essentially an implementation of the mantra “Don’t Repeat Yourself” that’s common in the world of programming.

Incredible. And love the SQL styling! 😍

Huge shout out to Ryan and the whole Warby Parker team for making this partnership happen. Special hat tips for behind-the-scenes support from:

  • Lon Binder, Chief Technology Officer, Warby Parker
  • Maddie Tierney, Executive Assistant, Warby Parker
  • Kayla Robbins, Executive Assistant, Warby Parker
  • Kaki Read, Senior Communications Manager, Warby Parker
  • Isabel Seely, Senior Brand Manager, Warby Parker

It’s been an absolute pleasure. And of course, the fam at Codecademy. You know who you are. Couldn’t do it without you.

Comment on 2019 Ultimate Blog Planner by 8 Planners & Journals To Get Your Life Together – Julia On Purpose

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2019 Blog Planner - Designer Blogs

We all know that running a successful blog takes careful planning and ample promoting. Throw in sponsors, affiliates, mailing lists, guest posts, tracking stats, giveaways, and taking pictures and blogging quickly becomes a full-time job! With so many balls in the air, it can often be hard to keep track of everything and stay organized. That is why we have painstakingly worked to design the most comprehensive blog planner kit out there.

Blog Planner Preview - Designer Blogs

Our blog planner has been downloaded by over 70,000 bloggers and is the most popular, well-utilized blog planner out there. It has been designed for driven, full-time bloggers who are determined to increase blog income and traffic.

The pages included in the full planner will help you brainstorm post ideas, plan your weekly posts, set yearly & monthly goals, track yearly & monthly stats, keep track of affiliates, Facebook advertising, social media posts, newsletter campaigns, finances, usernames & passwords, giveaways, etc. You name it, and our blog planner kit has you covered.

There’s no better way to grow your blog than by strategic goal setting and regularly tracking your progress towards reaching your blogging goals. Using The Ultimate Blog Planner is key to blog organization and blogging success!

WHAT’S INCLUDED

The following 9 pages can be downloaded in US Letter size (8.5 x 11) ABSOLUTELY FREE by joining our mailing list through the button below:

CALENDARS

  • 2019 Calendar
  • Undated Monthly Calendar
  • Undated Monthly Editorial Calendar

POST PLANNING

  • Post Brainstorming Guide
  • Weekly Post Planner

TO-DO LISTS

OTHER

  • Cover Page
  • Contacts
  • Blank Planner Page

2019 FREE BLOG PLANNER - DESIGNER BLOGS

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The extension package includes 52 additional meticulously designed pages of organizational goodness! The extension is available in four sizes (US Letter, A4, A5 & Personal) so it will fit the planner of your choosing. Here’s a look at what the extension package includes:

CALENDARS

  • Dated Monthly Calendars
    (12 months/pages) – new!
  • Dated Monthly Editorial Calendars
    (12 months/pages) – new!

POST PLANNING & TO DO LISTS

  • Post Topic Brainstorming
  • Blog To Do List

ADVERTISING

  • Advertising Tracker
  • Facebook Advertising

GOAL SETTING

  • Monthly Blogging Goals
  • Yearly Blogging Goals

SOCIAL MEDIA

  • Social Media Planner
  • Weekly Facebook Post Planner
  • Weekly Instagram Post Planner
  • Pinterest Post Planner
  • YouTube Planner – new!

STATS & ANALYTICS

  • Yearly Stats & Analytics
  • Blank Yearly Stats & Analytics
  • Monthly Stat Tracker

EMAIL CAMPAIGNS

  • Email Campaign Tracker
  • Automated Email Planner
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FINANCE

  • Monthly Finance Tracker
  • Yearly Finance Tracker

OTHER

  • Usernames & Passwords
  • Affiliate Programs
  • Giveaway Tracker
  • Sale Tracker
  • Sponsors
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  • Printing Instructions
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Blog Planner Extension Package - Designer Blogs

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

PAGE SIZE OPTIONS

The extension pack is available in the following 4 page sizes: US Letter (8.5 x 11 inch – North America), A4 (8.3 x 11.7 inch / 210 x 297 mm – Europe/International), A5 (5.8 x 8.3 inch / 148 x 210 mm) & Personal (3.7 x 6.7 / 95mm x 171mm). You can choose one or more sizes at checkout.

Blog Planner Sizing Options - Designer Blogs

Free Pages Included

The 9 free pages (above) are also included in the extension package, so you’ll receive the full 61-page planner in the size you choose with your purchase.

Ample Margins

The planner has been carefully designed with ample margin space to allow for holes to be punched without punching through any text.

Downloadable PDF Files

This planner is a digital item so you will not receive any physical products. The file(s) will arrive to you via email immediately upon purchase (if you don’t get them check spam). When you download the files, they will arrive in zipped folders. You will need to unzip/extract the files from the folder in order to access them. All files are in PDF format. You will need Adobe Reader to view and print them. Adobe Reader can be downloaded for free here.

Only Print the Pages you Need

This planner allows you to pick and choose only the pages you want to use so you aren’t lugging around unused pages. The Print Guide (included) will help you know how many of each page to print out. The Printing Instructions (included) will give instructions on how to print each of the different page sizes.

Update Subscription

Your extension pack purchase includes an optional subscription to yearly updates. To be notified of yearly updates, you MUST opt into our newsletter at checkout. New and/or updated pages will be available separately at a discounted price to subscribers only.

“I just love Designer Blogs. I have downloaded and used the Blog Planner and now the Life Planner. I enjoy very very much the emails I receive and the wallpapers. I will continue to look to Designer Blogs to fulfill various needs. A very professional yet personable company.”
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