Meet Dacian Gheorghe: Exploring Data Science in a Human Context

This month, the boobook team has grown a bit bigger! Dacian Gheorghe is the latest addition to boobook. Born in Romania, Dacian's parents moved to Belgium when he was only two years old. Living in West Flanders, Dacian feels Belgium is his home; however, every time he visits his grandparents and cousins in Romania, he says he "feels the ancestral connection".  

After finishing his bachelor's in psychology, Dacian decided to take the direction of business psychology. "I am just finishing my thesis for my master's degree. I did all the courses in business, psychology, and human resources, and I got very quickly passionate about analytics and data since the first statistics classes. This made me the odd one out in my psychology class because, generally speaking, not a lot of people like to do statistics," begins Dacian.

And he likes statistics a lot. "From that point on, I really enjoyed trying things and self-study, learning to program, and learning other software tools like Power BI and SQL. That is also why I went as far as doing my master's thesis with a professor of statistics about a specific statistical analysis, which I have to explain in a very approachable way," he explains.

Data scientists enjoy problem-solving, and Dacian is no exception. "I like programming because it puts you in a state of flow. You can just work on something, and you see it progress, which is nice," he admits.

Data science starts with understanding

Data helps us to make the right decisions, but what drove Dacian even closer to the world of numbers is "the factuality and accuracy of it". "Data gives me some stability in this unpredictable and chaotic world; it gives me something to hold on to, which I can use to gain better insights into things and people. Because of my background in psychology, I'm mainly interested in the behaviour of other people, what drives other people," he shares.

Dacian is aware of the expansive knowledge base required to be a good data scientist. According to him, it is vital to ensure the insights are made understandable – “you're nothing with knowledge that no one can understand. Data scientists must have an understanding of the human aspect, being able to communicate data and insights in an accessible way. Communication is an important part of the data scientist's job, as it is necessary to engage the audience”.

First days at boobook

Joining boobook is a major milestone for Dacian, as it's his first job. He knew immediately that this was the perfect fit when he saw the job listing online. "The description resonated with me, and boobook's website aligned with my skills and interests. It seemed like the natural choice to apply," he says. After speaking with Nicole and Helen, Dacian felt that this was the right decision.

Every beginning can be challenging, but Dacian is eager to learn. Support from the team certainly helps. "Everyone is so friendly and helpful! I couldn't wish for a better introduction to the company and a new job. I still have much to learn, but I'm confident I'll evolve and grow in the role. I'm also very excited to start working with different clients. That will be a new aspect for me," reveals Dacian.

Dacian knows that learning is key to success at his new job. "I’d like to continue learning more about different methods in analytics and machine learning. Also, I recently did a training on storytelling -- I learned a lot," he says.

When he's not writing his thesis or being busy learning more about data science, Dacian enjoys going to drawing classes, something that has been a hobby since he was a kid. "I remember I used to doodle a lot in class, and last year, I decided that it might be a good idea to learn how to draw decently finally," he shares. Together with drawing, he also likes to sew and tailor his clothes. Talking about being creative!

Businesses possess great advantages due to access to multiple data sources, but sifting through the data to determine what is important can be challenging. Here's where Dacian sees his path.  

"I believe this job isn't only about number crunching; you have to know what you're doing and the context of things to know the story behind it. It's important to go back in time before you can start on the projects to understand a story, what drives, for example, the firms, are the consumers. And then you use the data to build upon that," concludes Dacian.

We wish Dacian all the best with the new role! 

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