My fourth week here at Othot has brought us a step closer to getting some results on the data my co-worker and I have been working on since I have started. We had to wait a week or two till all of the data came in, then once it came in, it was a mess! None of the files had consistent ID’s and some fields were not necessary for what we are doing. Once we cleaned each file up a little bit, my co-worker merged all of the files together and I had to study each column to see if we had all the values, or if we needed to merge some columns together to get all of the data together. We ended up having to merge some columns together, which is something she let me handle on my own. I had to write a number of scripts that created the columns we could use when it comes to getting some results. This process was not difficult, and it was so interesting to see it all come together. After all of the work I have done for the past 2 weeks, it is all starting to come together now. Another thing I accomplished this week was running some testing on the preprocess file, seeing what errors came up, and how to solve them. Problem solving definitely played a huge role this week, but it is something that I really enjoy doing.

I did have some difficulty with my computer this week was was very frustrating. Microsoft Office continues to keep crashing, especially when I have more than one application open at once. I am hoping that I can find a way to resolve this issue because it keeps me from being able to work and research for 30-40 minutes.

I give myself myself a quality performance rating of 5 this week. I was able to execute a major part of the preprocessing, along with creating a train script for the final file. I also was able to overcome a couple of errors on my own, along with diagnosing some problems that needed to be fixed. It is ALWAYS a good feeling when you solve a problem that has been occurring for a while. It really shows me how much I really am learning here. Next week, we hope to get some results on the data after making some minor additions and changes to the preprocessing file.

Have a great weekend!