I Overcame Clinical Depression To Become A Data Scientist: This Is How I Did It

¡°Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts¡±. I swear by this aphorism and it has helped me tide over various challenges to become a successful Data Scientist.

I am Ravi Sreedhar, a Data Scientist with NeenOpal Intelligent Solutions and this is a story of how I beat clinical depression to build a successful career.

Ravi Sreedhar

Given the amount of misinformation floating around mental health issues, I thought it is my duty to tell people that clinical depression can be fought and brought under control and does not have to hinder one¡¯s career or life completely.

Pressure to excel

I come from a household where since early childhood, I was expected to be excellent at everything that I do and my parents were confident that I would outdo their expectations. I completed my graduation in BSc, Physics Honors, with exceptional results and that gave me the hope to become a Particle Physicist after completing my MSc.

However, this time, things did not go my way. My mathematical skills were pulling me down along with my health and I was unable to perform well. Being a topper so far, the thought of not doing well at education got to me. I developed feelings of self-doubt as well as precariously low self-esteem. Due to all of this, I was unable to complete my MSc which left me even more precarious.

After this debacle, I ended up going through a four year long career break where I tried joining other courses as well but could not succeed. That is when I decided to seek professional help and realized that I was suffering from clinical depression all along. It was not the most pleasant phase of my life.

Xskills

Getting mental health help

To cope with my emotions, I joined a personality development group which gave me a lot of positivity and the strength to accept my condition gracefully. The idea to find support from each other¡¯s stories of hope and strength really helped me look at life from a new dimension.

While seeking professional help is important in such times, I also believe in the importance of self-care and self-discovery. I underwent therapy and took my mentors¡¯ advice to follow the path of self-advancement. I started setting up short goals and worked towards achieving them.

First, I did a certification course in Statistical Analysis System (SAS) and looked for a job. The job that I bagged was not fulfilling. However, I continued for a year to gain some experience. Despite the job not being very attractive, the fact that I could stand on my own feet made me extremely happy.

Unsplash

Gradually, I started looking out for jobs in the field of Data Science. I knew that this field is set to be a disruptor in the days to come. After significant rejections, I realized that the lack of career-critical skills like Python, Tableau, R, and Stats in my profile was stopping me from bagging roles in this domain.

Bounce back and resurgence

I decided to upskill myself and joined Great Learning. The upskilling journey too came with its own set of challenges but I was prepared this time and learned new programming languages from the scratch, including Python, SQL, and Tableau that further opened the doors to vital machine learning techniques and applications such as Data Visualization, Text Mining, and Times Series.

After course completion, I realized that while one may have all the skills needed for a job, cracking the job interview with a career gap of four years is like walking on hot embers! But I did not lose hope and finally, after having undergone almost 13 odd interviews, I secured a job as a Data Scientist at NeenOpal Intelligent Solutions. Today, I am not only leading projects but also taking up challenging assignments to develop leadership capabilities and technical skills.

With time, I have learnt that failure isn¡¯t permanent. Even if you are at a low point in your life right now, that doesn¡¯t say anything about your talent or potential. The fighting and consistent struggles help you build the endurance to trump your fears and come out victorious. So never give up on your dreams and keep moving forward.

About the author: Ravi Sreedhar is a Data Scientist with NeenOpal Intelligent Solutions. Views expressed here are author's alone.