Facing Hard Truths: Dilara Karabey on Changing Her Career Path

Dilara Karabey, Data Scientist

Dilara Karabey thought she wanted to work in linguistics. She started studying at Boğaziçi University in 2017 with the linguistics department, but when the pandemic hit in 2020, she realized she hadn’t really considered her future in linguistics. It turned out, that wasn’t the career she wanted at all.

Karabey had always liked programming, hackathons, and robotics, but it was mostly just a passing interest. When she moved to Istanbul for college, she stopped coding altogether. But when the pandemic forced her to ask herself some tough questions, she stumbled onto the scholarship program at Dataquest, and suddenly everything clicked. She was coding again, and she’d found the future she was looking for.

Learning with Dataquest

Karabey was anxious to begin learning at Dataquest. After all, she was turning her back on the education she thought would define the rest of her professional career. The imposter syndrome was real. But once she got started, Dataquest started to feel like a natural match for her, “It was really easy for me, actually. Like, natural. And I did create a lot of cool projects; I loved the guided projects sections. By the time I completed the path, I was equipped with a lot of useful data skills.”

Karabey studied almost every day — it took her approximately three months to complete. She found the learning narratives very clean, and the no-video concept prevented her from becoming distracted. She found the community very helpful and nurturing. According to Karabey, by the time she finished her studies with Dataquest, “I was well-armed when I landed my first interview!”

Starting a Career

After Karabey completed her Dataquest courses, she decided she should start looking for a job or an internship. It took only ten days before a digital marketing agency hired her as a data science trainee, and she earned a promotion in just four months. After the promotion, she got into digital marketing analytics.

According to Karabey, “My current job title is “Data Scientist, Web & CRO Analyst,” and I work at Perfist. I’m establishing the Analytics & CRO Department and am dealing with a great amount of marketing data.”

Karabey is much more satisfied working in marketing than in linguistics: “Marketing is a very fun field with interesting dynamics. Working at an agency is actually what really drives me because when you work for an agency, you have a wide range of clients from different domains, and every single one of them has its own secrets to explore and analyze.”

Advice for Data Science Learners

Asked if she had any advice for other data science learners, Karabey had this to share, “My advice would be to go for it and really get into the community section. Also, guided projects are really useful, so they should make the best of them.”