Becoming a board-certified card-holding databasolologist?
May 3, 2010 7:44 AM   Subscribe

So I've got this pretty sweet gig doing data management for medical research, and my employers have said that they'll be very supportive of any efforts to train or educate myself in this field. This seems like a great opportunity. What should I be looking at? What, in general, should I be trying to learn, and where should I be trying to get from here? More details, possible ideas and a touch of commitment-phobia inside.

So I had philosophy degree from a fancy-pants university, then ended up for various reasons sitting on reception in a crappy job in a hospital. And since I was at a desk trying to look busy, I decided to teach myself Microsoft Access. And then there was a job advertised in same hospital for a data manager in research, and for reasons still sometimes unclear to me I got it.

Since I landed this last August I've been intensively teaching myself more about Access, databases and so forth and I'm now pretty reasonable at my job. My employers at any rate are fairly impressed, and, as far as I can make out, consider themselves to have come pretty well out of the deal. They particularly like the way that I can model data fairly fluently and translate their descriptions of what it is they're doing to into something structured. At a recent appraisal, they indicated that they'd be extending my contract and possibly giving me a pay rise. This is the first time I've had a decent job experience (in a good position with anything resembling prospects) since graduating three years ago.

Even more excitingly, they also indicated that they'd be very supportive if I wanted to work towards some kind of qualification in the remaining two years for which my job exists. Now, I've been teaching myself to use slightly more sophistimacated database platforms (eg SQL Server via the Express version and some online tutorials) but they were thinking of something more formal including possibly a limited amount of study leave. I don't really know where to begin, as I don't know that much about careers in this area. I browsed around a bit and found this MSc, which sounds decent, but I don't know if something else would be better in career terms or otherwise.

The things I like most about my job are:
- being able to work alone
- setting my own priorities for the most part
- trying to solve problems in new and better ways each time
- designing things that work
- continually learning something new
- working in an exciting field that seems socially useful.
The things I like less are:
- trying to work around old systems that aren't optimally designed
- sometimes having to go along with other people's priorities
- occasional anxious thoughts that I'm too stupid and inexperienced to do my job well enough.

Secondary aspect to the question: one worry I have in terms of all this career malarkey is that I've recently, for reasons partly documented elsewhere on this site, had my life handed back to me, as it were. And I don't know that this will always be what I want to do, though I like it well enough now; there seems to be a greater range of possibilities open to me than there were six months ago, so I'm correspondingly less certain about the wisdom of sticking with what I've got. I like my job a good deal, but I'm worried about the parts of me that don't get fed by this - the artsy-fartsy, critical-theoretical, lacanian-hegelian stuff that I don't know whether I want to be always a hobby. I worry, too, that I would be better off trying to be in education which allowed me to socialise with people who shared these interests. Of course, this isn't helped by the fact in England a second Masters is now much more expensive than the first; I would be unlikely to be able to afford it the next time around without asking my parents for help or getting a massive loan. But it would be stupid not to take advantage of the great opportunity that's in front of me now, right?
posted by Acheman to Work & Money (9 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Rather than an answer, I have a question for you: how did you manage to teach yourself Access this well? What resources did you use? How long did it take? "Teach myself databases" has been on my to-do list for a long time.

Have you ever considered statistics? It's a different way of working with data and would definitely be a skill useful to humanity and there would always be new things to learn. If you were previously a philosophy major, though, there may be too much math for you to catch up on.

I don't know the background of your situation, about having your life handed back to you, but from a general perspective, I'd say that since you are young, this doesn't sound like an either-or situation. If you don't like this field, can't you just change later? Also, I'm fairly practical about these things: I don't think you can expect to fulfill all of your passions through your job. If it pays you well and you like it, you're way ahead of the game. There are other ways to fulfill those parts of you outside of work and having a reliable, well-paid job may better help you pursue those interests. And if you decide later that it has to be your job that fulfills them, again, you are young and can change later.
posted by unannihilated at 8:36 AM on May 3, 2010


Consider an MS or SAS certification. Unlike just-database-focused programs you'll get some analysis in a SAS program. If you really like modeling and want a higher-ed version, an MS in applied statistics is a decent investment.

I socialize about art and wine and life outside of work. It's cleaner and better to have your hobby be something you love and your work something that you like.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 9:11 AM on May 3, 2010


I'm guessing your job is mostly health informatics-focused?

You can get involved in the community without having to pay out for a Masters, by seeing what the UK CHIP is up to, but you can also see what the City University of London Centre for Health Informatics is up to.

Start with UK CHIP, talk to a few people in the field, and see what they recommend. And because health informatics is such a wide-ranging field, you might find something that hits all your intellectual buttons.

(I had a year working with an England GP-focused health informatics training service, and even though I spent most of my time fixing their website, I learned more about health informatics and data quality in the NHS than I ever knew I needed to know...)
posted by Katemonkey at 9:51 AM on May 3, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yes - I came in here to tell you to consider SAS as well. Generally, that also goes well with some type of statistics degree if you are looking to pursue a university route. In the near future, you should continue to work on your SQL skills because I use this pretty extensively in my day to day SAS work.
posted by smalls at 9:52 AM on May 3, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks very much for the answers so far. I have a few questions:

I am a bit concerned about getting software-specific qualifications, as the SAS ones seem to be, because that would appear to tie me to a platform, one which I don't think we have a licence for, let alone use, even in my current workplace. Are these concerns unwarranted? What do people with SAS qualifications work as?

Currently I don't work with stats - we have stats people who do stats, I just make databases and get things into a format to do stats on. Would getting a stats qualification not seem like trying to move into another field, rather than trying to progress in the one I'm in?

If I got a qualification or similar in health informatics, would I end up stabbing myself madly in the eyeball in ten years time as I try yet again to get an NHS trust to implement sane IT practices?
posted by Acheman at 10:38 AM on May 3, 2010


SAS is available for all major platforms. The reason that it's kind of OK to be specific is that it is so widely used at major firms. There's a barrier to entry for firms because it is expensive, but it solves some analysis problems on very large datasets with incredible speed. If you aren't a firm with gigantic datasets, you don't need it. People with SAS qualifications are frequently the "data guy" for firms with so much data that you'd never give it all to one person.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 11:15 AM on May 3, 2010


Response by poster: So if I trained primarily in SAS I would be tied to working in a major firm with the budget for expensive software, in a data management team? I'm not so sure that that's what I'm after.
posted by Acheman at 2:16 PM on May 3, 2010


Response by poster: What about the Information Science qualification I linked to? Would it be useful, or not so much?
posted by Acheman at 2:20 PM on May 3, 2010


The course you linked to says this:

It is also possible to attend single modules as a short course student for the purposes of continuing professional development.

So pick one module and do that, see how it works for you and for your job and decide from there if you want to go on to a full degree program. Personally I'd chose this one based on your current description: Database systems analysis and design. You might end up doing a different degree, or none at all, but then you'll be deciding based on some experience rather than guessing like you are now.

Learning how to use software is easy, you've shown you can already do it. So whatever job you end up in you'll adapt to the package you're handed. But what isn't so easy or obvious, particularly for learning on your own, is the design principles underlying the software, how to handle the data and build good data structures. It sounds like you have some talent in this area already so formalise and expand on it. You'll get formal recognition for the stuff you can already do and you'll learn things you didn't realise you needed to know.

As an example. I can also use Access pretty well and have a very good handle on how my data works, the logic of it etc. But two hours sitting down with my boyfriend, a software developer who builds database structures and stuff all day, just blew my mind. The Access database we built together is so much more streamlined and functional. I've been able to expand on it easily as new information came up (something not always easy to do with Access), and the queries he gave me to pull out data in ways I hadn't thought of have saved me hours of work. The thing that jumped out of your question is that you don't have the formal education in the more theoretical parts. Designing a good database is more than just using the software and I think you'd benefit from that level of education now given how advanced you already are. And it will help with your last bullet point, heh.

The degree you linked to would give you a good general background in this area and help with your current job or open your options further. Health informatics might be more relevant depending on your job, and it looks like you'd still be learning the analysis and design skills there. I'm not sure about statistics, but that made me think of bioinformatics. I don't know if this is what you're interested in but it's another word to look up and area to explore given the modelling you talk about. Using R can be a very good way of handling data apparently and bioinformatics tends to use open source software (e.g. bioconductor, MySQL, etc) so you're not tied into expensive packages (although you can use those too).
posted by shelleycat at 2:45 PM on May 3, 2010


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