Several years ago, Nurul Asyikeen Azhar took the bold decision to leave a stable career in accounting by pursuing a master’s programme in data science at SMU and now after three years, she is building a new career as a data science specialist at Rio Tinto Group, the world’s second-largest company in the metal mining sector such as iron, diamonds and gold. She shared how a lack of coding and computer programming skills proved to be a challenge at the start of her master’s programme. However, she managed to overcome the challenge and is now deepening her knowledge by pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at SMU.