Project Reflection#
Individually I contributed the Exploratory Data Analysis as well as the Machine Learning prototype. Being the only DS3000 kid in our group, I had a lot of work that was not necessarily hard, but rather time consuming.
The majority of this time was spent on how the algorithm would work and what data would be used; as a result there were lots of team meetings to continue to hone down the idea into something tangible and buildable. We went through several iterations on what the specifics were to take our Phase I ideas and impliment them, clarified with the Professors’ feedback. I felt like I was always on Eurostat browsing for data that either was useful, or a stepping stone to what I needed for the model / app.
After getting what I wanted / needed to build down, the actually programming / data science was quite straightforward but time consuming. One unit of work was building and finding all the edge cases of a Eurostat API parser (only to find out there was a library 🙃). Next, there were some challenges when parsing and cleaning the data, mostly trying to fill in missing data as well as match the datasets in order to merge them for the model. While what I did was quick and in need of much more work, it still took some time to hunt down NaNs that managed to sneak into odd places. This data manipulation through Pandas is not something I was great at, but through the repetition I have started noticing improvements in my ability to rearrange and navigate these larger datframes. Finally, pulling that data into the model just took a while as I wanted to write cleanish code that could be expanded to more data with minimal effort. The linear algebra was overall simple once the matricies were constructed.
Belgium Reflection#
The largest thing I have realized throughout my stay in Europe so far was the cultural differences which are then relfected in systems such as the governmental organizations that we have spent much time talking to. In general, entities like the EU more completely flush out the rules on how everyone gets to play in the market, attempting to anticiapte cases and overall building these rules around fundamental ideas that often are quite vauge. Comparativly, the US creates the bare minimum, allowing the players in the space to sue and legally fight each other to establish the rules. Interestingly, every speaker has agreed that these rules were advocated for on both sides, private and public entities alike. That difference in creating a well defined market compared to creating the rules as they are needed illustrates this fundamental difference which proves that there is more than one way to run a country.
In terms of the best activies that have happened since the last Phase reflection, the choclate and pastry extravagansa takes the cake(pun intended). The chaos of getting your hands messy in chocolate and cream to create delicious treats that we consumed afterwards was amazing. The atmosphere of everyone in a cramped space, covered in food, was hilarious amounts of fun. On top of that, the treats were amazing and to share them with everyone else really cemented the culture of the group where everyone is confortable being themselves.