This is the last post of 2018 – a perfect time to reflect on the past year and muse over what’s to come in the new year. As everyone’s probably busy with their holiday plans, I’ll keep it short. I discovered a ton about data science in 2018. It was a turning point: I went from programming in R alone, sitting behind my computer in solitude, to connecting with the R community – online and offline.

In the online department, I discovered how useful Twitter is for keeping up with people who do interesting things with R. I’m now participating in Tidy Tuesday, for which I made my code public for the first time. To connect with the offline R community, I joined my first R-Ladies meetups. There are so many inspiring R-Ladies, and it’s awesome to meet great people with similar interests. Programming in R is a lot more fun when you’re in good company. Not to mention, I now have my very own data blog! I have long had personal data projects, and as of this year I’ve started sharing some of these projects publicly. As daunting as it was, I’m very happy that my work is now more visible!

In 2019, I plan to continue on the same path: being more involved in R-Ladies meetings, add awesome content to my blog, connect with more data scientists on Twitter. For now, there’s only one thing left to say: Happy holidays!


Christmas tree with animated decorations.

This Christmas tree was fully drawn in R. The code can be found here.