As things continue to deteriorate here in Louisiana, and it becomes increasingly obvious that what our administration wants from faculty, especially humanities faculty, is for us to become teaching bots, I find myself more and more interested in non-academic alternatives. And, the fact is that I really enjoy my current work on the small end of the big data revolution, or however it’s termed these days.

Mostly, it seems increasingly to be termed *data science*, but what people mean by that can vary. As I try to understand this emergent field, both from the removed position of a humanist just trying to track how ideas and practices play out in history as well as a humanist who maybe wants to play on those fields himself, I find myself looking at various data science programs. UC Berkeley’s School of Information offers a more traditional program, but there is also [Zipfian Academy](http://www.zipfianacademy.com/). They offer 12-week intensive programs and the possibility of some tuition relief. (And that sounds pretty good to a poor Southern humanist, or is a Southern humanist poor by definition?)