New Undergraduate DSI Project Opportunities – Fall 2022! Apply soon!
Application deadline coming soon: Tuesday, September 13th!
Looking for opportunities to meaningfully contribute to real data science (DS) projects? Vanderbilt’s Data Science Institute (DSI) has new opportunities for undergraduates to work on project teams with the guidance of a staff data scientist to learn technical skills, project management, and best practices – all while creating new solutions!
Who can apply?
Fall 2022 features an innovative set of engagements across a variety of fields, including athletics, anthropology, business, and more. To learn more about the projects, see the participation form for available projects. Students with technical expertise and training are preferred for team leads and code contributors, including through DS Minor courses, DSI workshops and other discipline-specific courses, and non-technical participants are also welcomed. Roles include:
- Project Team Lead: Technical or non-technical participant who organizes the activities of the team as a project manager
- Domain Lead: Technical or non-technical participant who has the expertise about the domain (these projects will focus on providing technology for facilitating inclusivity for people with intellectual or speech disabilities)
- Technical Team Lead: The lead code contributor – a participant strong in programming in Python and able to provide feedback and coding instruction for other coders
- Code Contributor: A participant who has experience coding in Python or other languages, but feels confident about their ability to currently write or transition to writing Python code
- UI/UX Designer: A technical or non-technical participant who enjoys designing the user interfaces
What experience do I need?
Some roles will require strong domain knowledge or programming skills. Coders should be familiar with skills relevant to the project, including R or Python, git, deep learning, machine learning, and/or visualization. For all roles, don’t worry – you won’t be on your own. Training will be provided to get you comfortable in your roles, and you’ll always have a staff DSI data scientist or postdoc in your meetings to help you!
What is the time commitment and expectations for participants?
The DSI provides experiential learning opportunities aligned with standard industry practice and adopts an Agile methodology for running projects. This means that you’ll be in about 3 meetings per week, one meeting will be up to 1.5 hours, and the other two are usually 30 minutes to an hour. Outside of these meetings, you’ll be expected to complete (or make meaningful progress) on the tasks you’re assigned during that week. We want you to have the best learning experience and also meet the project objectives, so we do expect our participants to attend all project meetings; however, we do also understand the occasional absence due to interviews, illness, etc.
How do I apply?
Fill out the brief participation form by end of day Tuesday, September 13th. Yes – a quick turnaround so apply early – we’ll be accepting applicants on a rolling basis until the close of the application. We’ll follow up with you later in the week.
We look forward to your involvement!