I’ve always been passionate about math and science, and I received a college degree in mathematics. I was working on a math PhD, but I was going through some family turmoil and I made some bad decisions, including quitting the program and selling drugs. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time, but now that I look back at my actions, I realized how I squandered all of my opportunities. I earned a 156 month sentence and decided that I needed to use this time effectively to prepare for my release. I completed RDAP, which helped me reflect on my past and my thinking patterns. I am more emotionally mature and realistic in my expectations about my future. As difficult as it is to prepare for a career while in prison, I’ve taken an interest in machine learning and finance. I’ve read numerous textbooks on probability and statistics, machine learning, time series analysis, stochastic processes, optimization, and derivatives pricing. I’ve also read many papers on generative models in AI and applications of AI to finance. I’m interested in applying language models to financial text data and alternative data in order to extract actionable information. While I don’t have access to a computer for coding purposes, one of the first things I’ll do when released is to enroll in an AI focused coding bootcamp to develop programming skills. I’ll also need to set up a GitHub profile and upload some projects to demonstrate my skillset. I hope to work in either technology/AI or in quantitative finance.
