First Steps

Blog
Author

John Robin Inston

Published

January 28, 2026

😊 Welcome!

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog! In this blog I will post about my ongoing projects, new releases and anything else that I find interesting.

Image taken by OC Gonzalez, find him on instagram at @OCVISUAL.

Going into my third year as a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara I wanted to make more of an effort to write and publish content that I felt might be helpful to anybody either looking to build their skills in mathematics, statistics and data science, or looking for advice on how to tackle both obtaining and commencing graduate education. This might be a good point to stress that, although I will take the utmost care and attention to ensure that anything I produce is accurate, I will almost surely make mistakes. If you spot any, please feel free to drop me a note here.

📋 Plans going forward

My plans are to consistently produce useful and engaging content in the form of YouTube videos, website posts and projects, and study material. Some of the topics I am interested in writing about include:

  1. Helpful software for students:

    1. Notion for life planning and organization
    2. Obsidian for study, document referencing and creation
    3. Zotero for reference management
    4. Technical writing using LaTeX and Markdown in Quarto

  2. Topics in mathematics and statistics:

    1. Probability Theory
    2. Stochastic Processes
    3. Linear Algebra
    4. Financial Mathematics
    5. Statistical Modelling

  3. Topics in data science:

    1. Programming in R, Python, and SQL
    2. Coding projects

  4. Career planning and guidance:

    1. How to make career decisions
    2. How to prepare for technical interviews

  5. Advice for graduate students:

    1. How to prepare class material using Quarto and GitHub
    2. How to create a personal website / blog

Additionally I also plan to write about my ongoing research projects. I am currently involved in two topics, one investigating modelling groundwater in California and the other investigating the survival capacity of actively managed mutual funds in the United States.

🦷 Teething Problems

This is my first time taking on such an ambitious plan of producing and publishing content. Although I apologize in advance for any broken links, poor formatting and missed posting deadlines, I hope that something I write might prove helpful!

Back to top