ethanyoo.com/content/now.md

14 KiB

title date layout description
Now 2024-08-26 permalink Find out what I am doing now: What I'm learning or reading, what I'm working on in my free time, and where I'm at professionally.

You might also want to read: What is a "now page"?

Recent academic and professional progress

In May 2024, I graduated from Rutgers University School of Communication and Information with a Master of Information (MI) degree and the data science concentration. I returned to full-time employment with the Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), where I started a Pathways Internship in June 2023. I was converted to a position in the competitive service during August 2024.

I visited Washington, D.C. in mid-August to support the inaugural convening on disaster human services.

In my free time

  • I'm preparing to apply for doctoral (PhD) programs, primarily in sociology, later this year.
  • I'm running AnythingLLM with Docker to test the capabilities of several different AI models and LLM API providers.
  • I've been spending time with friends from Swarthmore; I went with one friend to The Newark Museum of Art.

What I'm learning

I am continuing to attend monthly training sessions as part of the State of the States Data Ambassador Program.

In previous months

July 2024

  • For the first time since the emergence of COVID-19, I went with several friends to Blobfest, an annual event commemorating the 1958 film The Blob.
  • I attended an NJLEND reunion at The Boggs Center on Disability and Human Development (formerly The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities).

June 2024

May 2024

April 2024

  • My appointment as a research assistant with the Department of Library and Information Science ended in mid-April.
  • My placement with the New Jersey Early Intervention System (NJEIS) in the Division of Family Health Services ended on April 30.

March 2024

February 2024

  • I went to Annapolis, MD with the Eagleton Graduate Fellows.

January 2024

December 2023

  • I finished my second-to-last semester in the Master of Information (MI) program.

November 2023

October 2023

September 2023

August 2023

July 2023

  • I started a new project at the Center for Research on Ending Violence (REV) related to sexual misconduct by physicians.

June 2023

  • I attended the annual New Jersey Library Association (NJLA) Conference.
  • I completed an 8-week introduction to grant proposal writing offered by the Sociology Program at Fort Hays State University.
  • I started a full-time summer internship at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where I am working with the Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR).
  • I was invited to continue working with the Center for Research on Ending Violence (REV) at Rutgers School of Social Work as a temporary research assistant on a new project.

May 2023

April 2023

March 2023

  • I decided that I will pursue a research doctorate (i.e., a PhD) after graduating with the Master of Information (MI) degree - most likely in a social science (e.g., sociology or demography).
  • I started working on a pilot study with a professor from the Department of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information.

November 2022 to February 2023

  • I interviewed for full-time employment with many interesting government and non-profit organizations, but I ultimately decided to continue attending school full-time while working part-time. For example, I started working for Rutgers University Libraries as a Data Science Graduate Specialist, a role in which I develop and teach weekly, open workshops in "Data Science Basics" for individuals who want to improve their data management and visualization skills.
  • I created a Letterboxd account to log the movies that I watch.
  • I spent some time reviewing Esri tools (e.g., ArcGIS Pro) and self-hosting concepts (e.g., Docker containers and Ansible).

October 2022

  • I finished my year of national service in the AmeriCorps VISTA program on October 24, 2022.

September 2022

  • I started the Master of Information (MI) degree program at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information on a part-time basis.
  • I started NJLEND, a graduate fellowship for which I was selected as the first Library and Information Science Fellow in May 2022.

August 2022

  • I took an American Heart Association (AHA) course to renew my Basic Life Support (CPR and AED) certification.
  • I finished Optimization - Linear Programming at Thomas Edison State University.

July 2022

  • Using the scholarship I was awarded by Thomas Edison State University, I started a graduate-level course (Optimization - Linear Programming) in the data science program.
  • I met with a group of friends from Swarthmore College in New York City.

June 2022

  • I was certified to graduate from Thomas Edison State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and an associate's degree in mathematics on June 10, 2022. I also completed the undergraduate certificates in Computer Information Systems and Operations Management.
  • I was awarded scholarship funds for the fall 2022 semester by the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University.
  • I was awarded a Joseph Lippincott Fellowship (Swarthmore Fellowship) by the Fellowships and Prizes Committee at Swarthmore College.

May 2022

February 2022

January 2022

  • I officially withdrew from the Master of Social Work (MSW) program at Smith College School for Social Work, from which I had been taking a leave of absence.
  • I finished the November 2021 term at Thomas Edison State University, including three online courses (Data Structures; Database Management; Software Engineering) and two e-Pack courses (Computer Concepts and Applications; Industrial Psychology).

November 2021

  • Between moving in January 2021 and summer coursework at Smith College, I had some months where I wasn't regularly volunteering as an EMT. I'm back to it as of late November 2021.

December 2020

November 2020

  • I wrote my first "personal" post on November 2, where I describe leaving Cloudflare and GitLab Pages.
  • I'm back to volunteering as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) as of November 4.
  • I posted the privacy and security policy for this website on November 8.
  • I wrote a new "Start" page on November 11; it's now more of a landing page. There is an image of the old index page at the bottom of this post.
  • I added the "Now" page (what you're currently reading) on November 11.

Images

The index.html (a website's default starting page) until November 11, 2020. It included summaries of the four most recent posts, as well as the header and footer. The current index page has similar links, including a modified footer.