Before taking on Data Science at ITC, Moran Reznik had studied Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, and today he’s working for Checkpoint, helping them find anomalies in the data sets they use.
So how would you sum up the experience of studying at ITC?
ITC has definitely given me a large pool of tools and ways of thinking that allow me to deal with problems and challenges that my role today presents me with. I’m happy to say that ITC makes sure to put a big emphasis on acquaintance with the high-tech industry, and the fact that they bring in external workshops from experts in their field prepared me well for what to expect in my job today.
How would you say ITC has prepared you for the field you work for?
The field of Data Science is so big that you almost certainly won’t know what you will be working on at the end of the day, but if you are able to adapt to its basic idea and way of thinking, anything new that you want to learn will come much easier. At my new job, I have to deal with a lot of Clusters and Feature Engineering, so I find myself dealing with dirty and missing data on a daily basis – which is something that ITC had prepared me well for.
Can you tell us what you do at Checkpoint?
I’m not exactly sure about this matter, but I can say that I’m working on a product that helps characterize networks and identify anomalies – basically targeting exceptional cases. The things that I’m working on aren’t exactly categorized as Big Data (as in something that my computer can’t handle on its own), but it is big enough that I need to download it in a number of sections and then work on them separately.
Can you tell us about a certain challenge you were able to overcome at work?
Yes, the data itself – not only is it dirty, but to deal with it you need a lot of domain knowledge. Since Checkpoint is a Cyber company, and I studied Data Science at ITC, I don’t know much about this field. It was a real challenge for me to understand what all the data in front of me meant first for me to actually understand the product I was dealing with. This required me to learn lots of new things in a very short period of time.
Have you got tips for future students wanting to study at ITC?
Certainly, I would say that ITC is a program that is very much dependent on what you choose to take from it. If you’re willing to go the extra mile, with your own initiative and research, you will have much to gain from the program. It’s really not about getting accepted to the program, and expecting things to be handed to you, but rather knowing that it will take a lot of active learning to actually take advantage of the many resources that ITC has to offer. Saying this, it’s important to note that this state of mind is not only important for studying at ITC but is also a mentality that must be adopted in an early stage in this field of work. I would go so far as to say that if you’re the kind of person that won’t take initiative and do your own research on things you should know more about, this whole field of work might not be right for you. The good thing about ITC’s program, in this regard, is that you will get a real chance to become the type of person that will one day succeed in the field of tech! If you’re thinking of studying here, don’t be afraid of taking a chance on what you want to become in the future – even if today it could seem far away.