Hi, I'm Susan, data scientist and writer. I write about career development, data science/ML, productivity, and more.

For ML jobs content, I write on susanshu.substack.com and my book, Machine Learning Interviews published by O'Reilly.


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How to harness the Creation - Consumption energy loop

On the topic of Creation vs. Consumption, I am of the opinion that the act of “creation”, such as writing, programming, and so on, can be just as entertaining as passively consuming media that other people created.

However, prior to Creating, inspiration often comes from Consuming content.

For example, after playing a video game whose story resonates with me, such as Transistor by Supergiant Games, I might be motivated to create a world of my own, that others can experience. Or you might be motivated to write a blog about your career experience, after reading a blog post that was highly influential on your career.

Despite the frequent motivation we get from Consuming content and media, it can be hard to break out of the Consumption cycle, and act, which is in other words, to Create. More often than not, the next passive Consumption binge comes along, and causes us to forget our ideas and motivation.

In this article, I’ll discuss my approach to break out of the Consumption loop, and how I harness the inspiration from Consumption, and turn what used to be a fleeting motivation into a consistent energy that fuels Creation.


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Why choose a career in tech? Earlier origins (Conference panel)

Q&A about how I got into tech with a non-linear, non-traditional path, from a career panel aimed at a middle school audience.


Advice for self-learning game development

Three tips that I wish that I had known when I started self-learning game development.

Why I reduced calendar block times, and increased unstructured time

I write a lot about productivity, so when I started to complete things ahead of schedule, it freed up some time. Here's why I didn't allocate the newfound time back to something 'productive'.

How writing regularly has helped me

Writing has boosted my data science career and game development hobby. It allows me to gain more visibility with stakeholders, help readers, and share my ideas with the world.

Build a career in data science (Conference talk)

The story of how I went from not knowing about the field of data science while studying economics, to founding a video game studio, to data science, and the approaches that worked for me.

Why I chose data science over game dev for my first full-time role

Retrospective on how I chose data science over game development for my first role.

My impostor syndrome stories, and lessons I learned

Here are 2 personal stories of impostor syndrome and how I learned to manage it. Many high achieving individuals still experience massive amounts of impostor syndrome.

How to Live with Chronic Impostor Syndrome (Guest post by Eugene Yan)

Even high achieving individuals experience massive amounts of impostor syndrome. This post is about practical ways to manage it.

Scary decisions and how to handle them

Identifying “no by default” - reactions to scary decisions, and practical thoughts on making scary, big decisions.