hello

Morning

what kind of ambitious goals did you have in mind

My biggest career orientated goal: I want to pass my exams for a course I'm taking in Development Economics. If I score highly enough I may get the chance to study for a full degree at MIT.

How about you, @RhysW?

I've never heard of development economics before, is that development like software, or development like land and houses?

i don't really have any goals to be honest, i have a vague direction of 'learn more stuff' but that's pretty much it

the latter, think improving infrastructure in poor countries

learning more stuff is a pretty sound lifelong goal. What are your main interests? Astronomy?

my main hobby is probably reading, as its the only one i reliably stick to

everything else i kind of skim the surface and move to something else

@jserv ah i see, that's pretty good! especially with the option of going to MIT

It's a long shot, but definitely worth taking. The worst thing that happens is I learn a bit more about the field I want to go into.

Do you work at the moment? @RhysW

@jserv yeah it's a win win basically, if you work hard im sure you can pull it off!

@jserv i do, been a software dev for 5 and a half years now, though it doesnt feel anywhere near that long

I know what you mean. I only started real 'work' about two or three years ago, and it's flown by. Do you enjoy software dev?

oh yeah, they have to send me home sometimes or i dont leave

what do you do for your 'real work' ? related to what you are studying?

Kind of. Right now I'm working 'data' type role for a company running clinical trials

is it one of the big (top 50iish) pharmaceutical companies?

It's one of the top five contract research organisations (CROs) and it works with the biggest pharma companies, GSK, Pfizer, etc.

nice, i used to work for a company that provided software to pfizer, gsk, bayer etc, was curious as you might have been one of the people using it :P

CROs are the smaller places where those monstrous companies outsource a lot of the data management/stats type work

I may well be using that software as we speak

is it a website or desktop application?

the two major ones are websites

ooh chances are pretty high you are using stuff i wrote then! (that's pretty cool to me, i don't often know the people who end up using it :D )

that's such a cool coincidence

I have to warn we play favourites here, too, there are heated debates about what database software is better

haha, i don't work for that company any more so i'm fine with that :P

obviously the one you wrote for is the better one anyway

;)

what kind of things are you expecting to see on these exams

It's split into five modules, one of which I already passed, then... 1) microeconomics (which is basic calculus, really, but it's been killing me getting up to speed), 2) heavier data analysis using R and Stata, 3) applying the stats to randomised controlled trials to test things like "did policy x work" which is probably the hardest bit, then 4) project management, how to make sure you're not collecting garbage data

explaining it like that, it's actually a pretty intense course

yeah i dont think i could even pass any one of those bullet points, let alone all of them at once, sounds intense !

I was stupid and tried to take exams for all these subjects on the same day, I get a second (final) attempt at each, now I'm planning to split them across two periods

January 2018 and May 2018

so you can maybe see why I'm making all these little rooms and connecting with people trying to muster up support, because this is going to be pretty challenging

Ideally I'd like to support others who are equally insane

But alright, enough of my life story, what made you pop in? Deciding some goals for yourself? @RhysW

@jserv oh yeah, i can see the need to have people to turn to, best of luck for it!

@jserv kind of, i have no ability to get any work done if i'm the only person who wants it done, i'm infinitely more productive as soon as some 'non-me' person is slightly invested in it being done

works great when im at work, less so for personal projects

it may be helpful to have an accountability partner

there's a wonderful website called StickK that allows you to bet money on whether you achieve a goal, the idea being you're much more motivated when you put something tangible you value on the line

thats amazing, thats like abusing the system to make yourself accountable to yourself

32 million dollars worth of cash sat in there too, jesus

haha, exactly. It's a great system. Probably the most inventive bit is that you can decide where your money goes if you lose, a charity or to an 'anti-charity' (an orgnaisation you hate)

the idea being you'll hate seeing your money go there that much more and work even harder

have you used it before? or just something you are aware of

I've staked money on passing these exams, of course. I couldn't bring myself to choose the anti-charity, though...

It did come to my attention through Dean Karlan, one of the more creative development econs

nice, i might have to register for this then

probably a good companion site to a room like this!

That's a really good point. Maybe I could add some useful tools to the room description/topic?

stickk.com - Putting your money where your mouth is for accountability

there we go, pinned to the side

awesome, good idea

how did you do that, by the way?

Oh I got it, arrow then 'pin'

yeah, if you hover over a message then on the right side is a little star icon that you can use too

also, 'putting your money where your mouth is' is a better tagline than the one they use for the website, seriously

:D it's a pretty common phrase where I am, so maybe they couldn't use it

grumble

Well ok

@RhysW How did you format that?

i just pasted urls, didnt try to do any formatting myself

raisonliving.github.io/deciso - deciso

Hi guys. Interesting room, just thought I'd drop by and introduce myself.

hey Kaz, welcome

@RhysW How's it going?

not bad thanks, authentication is the bane of my existance but its all positive other than that :P yourself?

@RhysW Desperately trying to keep up with my company's growth rate. By the end of the year, we will have more than doubled in size.

@Kaz thats better than the alternative of halving though i guess!

does that put lots on your plate then?

@RhysW Yes.

When I started here 3 years ago, I'd never written a single line of code, but still had more technical experience than anybody else in the company (we were just 8 people back then).

3 years later, I'm still the only technical person we have ^^

On the one hand, it's awesome, because I get to learn & grow & develop really, really fast.

On the other hand, that's not out of choice, but out of necessity.

I haven't had a quiet week in about 10 months.

So, you know, nothing too strenuous ^^

@Kaz thats nuts, full throttle all the time is draining, though its good that you get experience fast!

thats a lot of goals, im always impressed by peoples goals, i've never had any, i have no idea where i'd get the desire to do that from

if anyones willing to share why they have the goals they do i'd be more than happy in trying to understand a bit more

@RhysW Well, it's taken a while to get here. For the previous 5 years, my goal was simply "Become mentally stable".

Those 5 years screwed up a lot of opportunities for me, so I've got a lot of lost ground to catch up ^^

i can imagine thats a good source of motivation, glad to hear you've broken through to the other side though!

@RhysW Well, for now. I'm currently 6 months from the last work day I missed for mental health reasons. I'll feel happier to consider it settled once it's gone a whole 12 months. In either case, it's minimal enough that it's no longer a major performance problem.

My work have been incredibly supportive for the past 3 years.

One of the many problems I don't want to go anywhere else

@Kaz hey, thats 6 times longer than me so congratulations. a supportive workplace makes all the difference, i moved to a much more relaxed workplace recently (ish) and its like you say, makes you less likely to leave, or even want to leave

@RhysW Yes, though there are limits. We're getting to the point now where I could conceivably hop over to London, and get a Quant job that doubles to triples my current salry.

That's going to come to a head with work sooner rather than later, and we will see how it shakes out.

@Kaz quant?

@RhysW Quantitative Finance.

i had some london offers recently too, but the higher salary never seemed matched to the additional stress, and travel, and living costs

ahh

Are you in the UK then?

yup, Colchester to be more specific

@RhysW Cool. I'm over in St Albans.

And yeah. London comes with its' own problems, but I have no particular attachments keeping me here, so I could just up sticks and relocate for a good enough opportunity. And opportunities for Quants in London are better than ever.

@Kaz sweet, thats only like, 2 hours away.

Quants sounds pretty tricky, infact, anything involving finance always sounds hard to me :P

@RhysW It's mostly just data. Lots and lots of data. And spreadsheets.

@Kaz what sort of stuff do you have to do with it? I imagine it comes with some pretty complex algorithms to get the reports / outputs that the higher-ups always want?

@RhysW Over in proper Quant Land, it varies a lot.

For me, it's much more "Automate these spreadsheets", "Automate lots of reports", "Advise on how on earth we should build our IT systems for the future".

With equal parts IT help-desk and watching-the-investments thrown in for good measure.

sounds about as defined as most it roles 'This specific thing ...and uh, all these other vague things'

@RhysW I always go with "Smart-guy-who-gets-things-done".

It's more accurate than most of the job titles I end up with.

Your job title is "Winston Wolf"

Those are some extremely worthwhile goals, @Kaz, I admire that. Also interesting that we're all from the UK

timezone and english speaking board i guess

@jserv i think i found you on stickk

Ha, that's cool @RhysW. I think I have the same username on there...

yeah :P

You're welcome to become a supporter. Also, nominate a referee and they get to decide whether you've fully met your goals or not

Scary to give someone else that power

Are you thinking of creating a goal for yourself?

i think we have to be friends to be supporters? im not too sure how it works

yeah i have 1 or 2, or 5 in mind

Look forward to seeing what you come up with

youre pass exams one is showing up as completed when i look at it

mine are much smaller goals than yours, nothing too exciting im afraid!

Yeah, that was my first attempt. This weekend I'm going to create a new goal that will last until May 2018, betting an amount of money that will sting to lose

@jserv If I can offer some advice: Shorter-term goals are always easier to stick to than longer-term goals. Rather than one big goal, figure out what the first month of that goal would look like and use that instead.

that's true, @Kaz. I could break down the bet into the two exam sessions I have, one in January and the other in May. Or perhaps breaking it down further to individual exams (I have four modules to pass).

I also have monthly 'blocks' of revision set out, too... All of these are good alternatives, I think

@jserv Above all, make it objectively quantifiable. "X hours of revision this week", for instance.

Yes. In my case, each revision block would be completing individual online courses, more like a yes/no, but still objectively one or the other

@Kaz ooh i like this advice