What made me a data hobbyist

My love for data started somewhere in the second year of college. We had to work with microbes and those who have worked with bacteria know well that you can never predict whether and how the cultures grow. So after a two-day experiment, I was the only one in the class with a flawless linear graph while everyone else had curls, curves or nothing. Back in the days before Excel, you had to draw the graphs by hand on green graph sheets. Those of you who have seen me in a life sciences lab know how much I struggled with the microscopes because of my cylindrical power and with pipettes because of an unsteady hand. That I should have the 'perfect' graph was not because of my lab skills but because of my stat skills 😂 I used a graph with a scale in recurring decimals (e.g. 1:1.333333) that ensured that the microbial growth will show up in a straight line with equal distribution on either side. Everyone in the class copied that 😂 

I became a data hobbyist while working as a journalist at Downtown Plus the south Bombay supplement of TOI. Tasked with reading reader's letters and contest responses, I built a database and between stories, created reader profiles (met many of them personally) and mapped the geography of responses so much so that the marketing team used the data for years after that 😀 As someone who was terrified of maths in school but loved statistics in college and taught data journalism for years, I make the case for learning things along the journey of life, even those that you didn't like much in school. You never know what you might discover. In my case, it has helped me to switch between careers. 

#data #graphs #statistics #microbiology #biochemistry #genetics #geek  #internationalrelations #datajournalism