Day 526 of 1000

Since I started taking volunteer work seriously over the last ten years or so, I have probably made greater advances in my career through volunteer work than any other way.  Things I have been able to add to my resume specifically because of volunteer work include Python, QT, QT Creator, R, Arduino programming, and I am sure there is some other stuff I am forgetting.  Over the next year or so it appears I will get two or three refereed journal articles for our research at the GaugeCam project at NCSU.  I am a big fan of volunteer work, not only as a way to contribute, but as a way to make friends and build community.  I hate to think I would perform volunteer work just for career advancement, but there is a utilitarian case that could be made for doing just that.

I drove Kelly and Christian to school this morning, dropping them off in front of the SAS building at NCSU at 8:15.  It is about a 40 minute drive at that time in the morning because of the traffic so we had time to have an interesting discussion about volunteering.  Yesterday afternoon I received a very interesting email from an accomplished person who wants to do some statistical analysis on some topics on which I have had great interest in the past.  Kelly was fascinated because she has followed these same topics and is, of course, a statistics major with an increasing skill set.

I really do not feel too qualified as a statistician although it is something I am working on and doing at my day job more and more all the time.  Kelly is much more skilled than I at this point.  But the beauty of volunteering is that there are generally more opportunities for people with lower levels of skills than in paid positions.  If, as in this case, you are doing it to help out without no expectation of pay, there is a joy to it that does not exist in a job where you have to show up, even if you love that job.  I do not know whether I will have the opportunity and/or time to take on this new volunteer work, but I do know that, if I did, I would get more benefit from it than I contributed.

The ride to school talk focused more on whether Kelly should go on to a one year professional Masters degree in analytics or a PhD program in statistics.  The challenge is that the Masters degrees in analytics are pretty expensive.  The program at NCSU cost $21,240 for tuition and fees.  She would make that money back fairly quickly, but it is still quite a bit of money and they easily place all their students in good jobs out of that program.  The average base salary for someone with no work experience who graduated from that program in 2012 was $77,100.  On the other hand, if she goes on to get a PhD, she will get paid a stipend while she gets her degree than make a good salary after that.  The issue is that if she becomes a stay at home wife and mother rather than try to be an uber professional woman which is what she would really like to do, how will each of these career paths hold up?

We talked about ways for her to contribute while she is not in the marketplace.  I think that whichever path she takes, volunteering on projects can help here contribute while it keeps her skills sharp and helps her to learn new stuff.  We will continue the discussion.