Chelsea’s journey began at university studying fine art. Whilst creating, Chelsea realised she had been making all of her artwork around mind-bending ideas and mathematical concepts. This triggered her transition into a maths career, so she moved back to Leeds to study mathematics at degree level and then went on to complete a Masters degree in explorational geophysics. Chelsea makes it clear it is ok to change your mind.
So, what is exploration geophysics? A complicated title for a complicated job that involves locating and sourcing the oil below the earth’s surface. Chelsea had to locate the oil without doing any drilling, and when oil was possibly under large buildings or on the bottom of sea beds, this could become quite complicated. Chelsea enjoyed this career, combining basic maths with physical methods of locating the oil. However, in 2015 oil shares crashed and she was out of a job.
After this, Chelsea got a job as a data scientist- working with a large amount of data in order to make models and predictions. Many companies will use data scientists, for example, Netflix will hire data scientists to look at your data and then recommend the shows you will like the best. Siri also uses data scientists so that they can become smarter and more personalised.
Not all of the data that data scientists work with is trivial, and some work can be quite serious. For example, a data scientist might work for insurance companies where they will take your medical data and analyse it to give you a quote.
Chelsea really enjoys her job now, and although her career has taken different directions from what she expected- she has some advice that we can take with us when things get challenging. She says to keep your work colourful and interesting and make sure you put your own twist on things.
Want to find out more about Chelsea? You can find her on Youtube and Instagram.
