Days 10, 11 & 12: More Research and News From Back Home

        I am combining the last three days of work into one blog post as they were all focused on one issue. In the span of the last few days, I analyzed over 6 different database websites and over 500 different datasets; I was confident I found a good dataset for Chapter 2, however, soon had to scrap all of our work. On day 10, I moved on to analyze other parts of the book. Chapters 3 & 4 discussed important parts of the process, however, they did not need any major changes nor additions. Chapter 5, however, turned out to be the single most important part of the book as it introduces Pandas and NumPy libraries to students who may have never had a computer science course prior to reading this book. This is, of course, a major problem as we are expecting Business major students with no coding experience. I was tasked with reading, analyzing, and taking notes on the ideas introduced in the chapter and its complementary readings. This was in preparation for writing a brand new chapter that would introduce Python to students with no computer science experience. This type of learning and analysis is my area of comfort as I love to spend time learning new ideas and analyzing their practical use. I also love thinking about the ways information is best communicated to and interpreted by others. This is very similar to the idea of Rubber Duck coding, but instead, I think of the ways I could better explain to the Duck different conceptual thoughts and ideas rather than lines of code.
        So, for the last three days, I was reviewing the materials in the book and its outside sources as my contribution to the open-source part of my summer experience. I then dived deeper into the tools and ideas, such as data structures and efficiency of Pandas vs NumPy vs CPython, as an open research part of the experience. I felt confident in this work as it is very similar to my normal research experience where I study about different tools that could be used for analysis and decision making.
        On a different note, my parents confirmed on Saturday that they have coronavirus, and this has been distressing me during this time. The idea of my parent(s) passing away has been well in my mind for the last three days, and I am not sure how one could ever get used to this thought. I appreciated Dr. Jan's advice on keeping myself busy with work during this time - I realized that the more free time I have, the more I tend to spend it thinking about my parents' well-being. Hopefully, it will all be ok.

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