When I first arrived on campus for freshman move-in, I thought I knew what the next four years would like. Looking back, it was a very rudimentary plan based on the experiences of other recent high school graduates that included completing my degree, graduating, and landing a job. While I am excited to say all of those happened, the journey to each of those milestones included many more activities and very different challenges than I had anticipated. My time at Carthage has been full of unexpected opportunities that have pushed me outside of my comfort zone to develop new skills. The first challenge within data science was overcoming the imposter syndrome and fears that data science was too difficult for me to understand. My roommate at the time was a computer science major who had founded data science club to expose more students to the field of data science. I had seen her projects and each time she showed me what she was working on, I left with a feeling that data science and coding was way over my head. For weeks I watched her prepare for a weekend long Hackathon at Carthage, and the first day of the event had finally arrived. Like any good roommate, I showed up for moral support, but I didn’t plan on staying very long. That event drastically changed the rest of my college experience. She and a few of her friends showed me some basic coding commands, and I was blown away. I spent a few hours learning basic Python commands and writing lists. It wasn’t anything too complicated, but after watching my roommate’s computer science projects and thinking that there was no way I’d ever be able to understand that, it was a big win, and more importantly for my Carthage experience, it had piqued my interest in coding and data science. Now it was time for my second challenge: fitting a data science major in before I finished my fourth year at Carthage. The data science major includes a self-designed concentration of three courses that will further develop a set of skills or apply skills to a certain area of study in addition to the required courses. I was leaning towards a concentration in analytics, so I took Introduction to Business Analytics, which introduced me to Tableau, a statistical and data visualization tool that we used to make various graphs, charts, and maps. I loved the visualization aspects of our Tableau labs, so when it was time to submit proposals for our concentrations, I switched it to data visualization. My three-course sequence included Econometrics, Intro to Geographic Information Science, and Advanced Geographic Information Science and Analytical Cartography. These courses helped me learn how to visually present many different types of data in a simple yet compelling manner. My data science courses at Carthage gave me a firm foundation for analytical skills, but I wanted to practice these skills in a work environment, leading me into another challenge: finding an internship. I applied for internships within data analytics and data management and after a few rounds of interviews got my first internship on a data analytics team at an insurance tech company. I analyzed insurance claims data using data maps that we created and identified areas in which insurance providers could bring down their costs. My Introduction to Computing course taught me how to overcome the learning curve for new programming languages, which made it easier to pick up the required SQL skills I used to build the data maps. Since I also had to present my findings to the broader team and outside partners, this internship taught me how to communicate my analysis to clients who are unfamiliar with technical terms and ensure I highlight the key findings to them. The second internship was with the product data management team at a water solutions company. I spent the summer doing a deep dive in Excel’s VBA coding while I developed a scorecard project to test data quality. I learned so much about the importance of data cleaning as I was responsible for uploading all changes made to product data. Business Analytics had introduced me to VBA, but this internship was the opportunity to expand that skillset and apply it in a business setting. This role also challenged me to find efficient ways of performing tasks as I helped with process improvement surrounding data storage and data uploads. My internships gave me the opportunity to refine technical skills, but my biggest takeaway from these experiences was not what I expected. I thought that the best way to determine career paths I would enjoy would be to find jobs that I loved, and while I did enjoy both of these internships, it was the things that I did not like that taught me the most about what kind of jobs to pursue. For example, in my first internship in data analytics, I learned so much about communicating with external partners and presenting to outside clients, but during my second internship that was less client facing, I realized I would much prefer to stay behind the scenes and work with internal teams. I have learned so much about myself and what type of path I might like to pursue, but I know I still have a lot to discover about myself. My time at Carthage was nothing like what I expected it to be four years ago in the best way. I pursued opportunities I did not know existed and developed skills I thought were too difficult for me to understand. I have grown both personally and professionally, and I am excited to see what my next steps are.
Carthage College Celebration of Scholars, 2022 Photo Credit: Dr. Erik Johnson