A little over two years ago, I was a mentee in the Spring 2017 ChiPy mentorship program. One of the most active Python user groups in the world, ChiPy organizes a free, 13-week-long, one-on-one mentorship program twice each year. Individuals of all skill levels are welcome to participate. During the program, mentees learn Python programming best-practices while working on a project of personal interest. It was through the ChiPy mentorship that I began learning Python in earnest and started my still on-going CTA Bus Data Analysis project. Since participating in the program, I've continued to develop my Python and data …

I have been gradually developing skills as a programmer and data scientist since graduating from college two years ago. I started by teaching myself Python in my free time, because I thought it would be useful to know. Many people I knew were using it after all! My learning was initially haphazard. I learned and understood basic Python techniques, but my knowledge felt purposeless. It wasn’t until I tried to solve a major problem from my day-to-day life with Python (a story I'll share later) that my knowledge gained purpose. By applying Python to something personal, my Python skills …