After 10 years as an economist in government civil service, Hussein Farook wanted a new career in a different sector. For him, that meant a career change to data analytics – but he had no idea how to get there. That was before he found the LSE Data Analytics Career Accelerator. 

I didn’t have coding skills before

“The programme was very good at being able to break things down from a practical perspective. So any problem is made up of a series of questions and then a series of answers, and how well you structure those. It doesn’t matter how good your coding skills are. If you’ve got a good framework and thought process; I found that really invaluable.”

I landed a new role four months into the programme

“I already had about four months of experience or learning under my belt [when I started my new role as an economic consultant]. And it was amazing to see that actually, the skills that I was learning in the course, could be applied in my role. So I think my first takeaway for anyone who’s interested in this is: regardless of what conceptions you have, about how you’d use these kind of practical skills, you can apply it to almost any industry, whether it’s data, and I think, given how interconnected everything is that being able to tell a story – or to scrape a website – to really understand how to segment a market has been really beneficial to my career. So in a very short space of time, I’ve been able to use those skills and it’s become an increasing part of my day to day toolkit.”

“I think part of the reason I got my new role was the fact that I enrolled on this Career Accelerator. And it was part of my interview discussion at the end. So it was definitely something they took note of.”

My Success Manager kept me on track, accountable, and prepared

“I remember eight months ago when you mentioned the role of the Success Manager, I wasn’t entirely clear how well I needed to interact with them. But actually, having someone you dock in with regularly – outside of the general kind of Q&A you have about the course material, or separately about longer term career aspirations –  those weekly catch ups with my Success Manager were really helpful”.

My Career Coach helped me rethink my career

“So I think the most rewarding thing from this programme was just how manageable and bite-sized the pieces of advice were. So rather than thinking about: ‘I need to get a job in this industry by this time’, it was: ‘have you thought about what motivates you, what interests you,’ then think about where you’re most engaged or at least engaged, and then you start thinking about where those skills might be most applicable.”

I learnt how to build my brand

“Does your LinkedIn profile say what you want it to say? It was remarkable how little attention I pay to LinkedIn, and how useful that is as a marketing tool for yourself. So building my profile on that, thinking about how I sell myself, who I’d like to sell myself to, and how I reach out to people, that was really helpful.”

This is what you can expect

“If you can at the outset embed 15 to 20 hours a week, it’s really beneficial. It’s quite difficult to try and pick up a language quickly on the fly, I think it’s something you need to do constantly.”

“Because I worked full time, I would normally dial in to the 7pm [lecture] – that’s recorded. So you have a very easy to use interface where you can replay any of the lectures, they come with an online notebook as well. So you can annotate and reference questions during those lectures, which is really useful. In addition to that, I think the biggest benefit for me was the way the online learning was structured. So you have access to a website, each module is broken down into submodules with questions and practical examples, and then assignment tips and learning – you can break that up as and when it’s most convenient to you.”

When Hussein started thinking about his future opportunities, he knew he wanted a toolkit that gave him opportunities to use data – but not be pigeonholed into that role. Ultimately, he’d love to marry his passion for music with his career by working for companies like Spotify. With his new skills – and growth mindset – we have no doubt that Hussein will go further than he thought was possible. 

A career in data opens up opportunities in nearly every industry. If you’re interested in the LSE programme that helped Hussein get real career results, check out the programme page.