In a world where conformity often feels like the norm, your authenticity is your greatest strength. Staying true to yourself is not just important, it's your superpower. When you bring your true authentic self to work each day, you contribute to a diverse and vibrant team culture where everyone's unique strengths and perspectives are celebrated. Being true to yourself means embracing your values, passions, and quirks without fear of judgement. It means speaking up with honesty and integrity, even when it's difficult. When you stay true to who you are, you inspire others to do the same, fostering a culture of trust and openness. We value authenticity not only because it makes our workplace more enjoyable and fulfilling but also because it drives innovation and creativity. When team members feel empowered to express themselves authentically, they bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the table, sparking creativity and driving us forward. Moreover, authenticity is contagious. When you lead by example and show up as your authentic self, you encourage others to do the same. This creates a ripple effect throughout the organisation, strengthening bonds between team members and fostering a sense of belonging. Remember that your authenticity is not just welcomed – it's celebrated. Come As You Are and bring your whole self to work, and together, we'll unleash our collective superpower, driving success and making a positive impact in everything we do.

I think you should be aware that communication and presentation skills, motivation and the will to grow and further develop your abilities are not only buzzwords but skills that are often underestimated but quite relevant for the work of a Data Scientist. I often have to explain and present the approaches I used and the results I obtained on various levels of granularity to different audiences. For example, when discussing with other data scientists in the company I need to be able to explain how a method works in detail. In contrast to that I have to focus on the business implications of my modeling choices when talking to the business colleagues or to managers. For the latter audience it is usually more relevant to understand the general idea of an approach rather than the details of how it is working. It is not easy to switch between these settings and to find a proper way of communicating to each of these different kinds of audiences but keep in mind that this will be a relevant part of your work as a Data Scientist. Additionally, lifelong learning is not only a buzzword at TUI. You should be motivated to actually stay up to date with the current state of the art Machine Learning procedures and bring motivation and initiative to continue your learning process. As a team, we are deeply involved in decisions that concern the way we work and the tools we use. Therefore, we have to keep track of new developments in the world of Data Science and Machine Learning and need to be willing to adopt new methods or tools if we expect them to be useful for our daily work.

Working abroad was a huge step, working at sea was an even bigger one. I had moments at the start, where I thought I would never pass my STCW course (sea safety, fire fighting etc, a course that is required to work at sea) I ended up having to do the course 3 times throughout my career as it has to be renewed every 5 years. I never thought at the start of my career at sea that I would become an actual uniform wearing officer. What I mean by this is an officer in a white uniform with gold stripes (Epaulettes) on my shoulders - but I did when I became the Front Office manager onboard Thomson Spirit, what a massive learning curve I did it!