It’s been awhile since I blogged about Galvanize and a lot has happened in that time!

In the midst of working on my capstone project, I was offered a position as a Data Scientist in Residence (DSR) with Galvanize upon graduation. I’ll be serving as sort of like a TA for the new cohort of future data scientists. As I just went through the program, I (along with my fellow DSR) am well positioned to help these students through the DSI program. I’m thrilled to have a (paid) position where I can continue to deepen my data science skills. It’s a 3-month contract, so I’m mindful of continuing to  look for what comes next.

Moar math!

I’ve heard feedback from former DSRs that they learned just as much or more as a DSR as they had when a student. I’m excited to see all the course content another time, not to mention learning through teaching! You really have to understand a topic to explain it to someone else. I can tell I will get a lot of practice reading other people’s code, which I understand is likely how you spend much of your time as a data scientist in industry.

This also meant that my last weeks in the DSI were a bit more relaxed. As a rule, DSRs don’t participate in hiring day with their cohort (as we have a job for the next few months) which also took some pressure off my project. But don’t worry, I did finish it! I’ll post a link once I have the website up and running, as I took it down for now to save some money on hosting. I observed hiring day, where my fellow cohort-mates knocked it out of the park with their project presentations.

The final week of the program was focused on technical interviews– and was quite intimidating. Technical interviews are unlike any other interview process I’ve experienced, and many questions are pretty challenging. Whiteboarding is also a skill of its own, and one I know I’ll need to get more comfortable with in the future.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to keep blogging my way through my continued time with Galvanize– I know I dropped off a bit there towards the end, but here’s to re-establishing good habits!