The thing is when you want to do data science
and you are just somebody who has a bachelor’s
degree and you are just fresh out of college
is that you have a lot of options, you have
a lot of online courses that are promising
you to train in data science in 2 months,
3 months or gives you specific courses and
I took a lot of them.
What was missing was the fact that, it was
not guided.
Hi everyone, my name is Aritra and I have
been working in this space of analytics consulting
for a while.
Cumulatively I have about 1.5 years of experience
and I have been working with Springboard since
June as one of their data science cohorts.
So, the purpose of this video is to talk about
my career transition from a liberal arts background
to a career in analytics, with the help of
Springboard as a part of their data science
cohorts.
The thing is when you want to do data science
and you are just somebody who has a bachelor’s
degree and you are just fresh out of college
is that you have a lot of options, you have
a lot of online courses that are promising
you to train in data science in 2 months,
3 months or gives you specific courses and
I took a lot of them.
What was missing was the fact that, it was
not guided right and that becomes a big challenge
because when you are starting out, you are
looking at a number of problems, you are looking
at machine learning, you are looking at NLP,
you are looking at deep learnings so it tends
to become confusing.
So I remember I was on LinkedIn and Prashant
from the Springboard team in India, he reached
out to me and he said that look I viewed your
profile and it seems like you make the cut
for joining our program at Springboard.
Before that I hadn’t even heard of Springboard.
So I joined up, okay let’s see what can
be done.
So he was like before you make a decision
why don’t you get on a call with one of
our mentors.
So I got in touch with Chirasmita, she is
working as a data scientist and I spoke to
her and I expressed my concerns that I have
been taking a lot of courses, what makes this
course different?
And she explained to me that, there will be
guidance, this is like a no nonsense course.
And then I moved on to Springboard website,
I checked out the courses and really loved
the kind of bases that it covered and also
the fact that it also lets you choose the
kind of specialisation towards the end.
And that was it.
I was so sold on that, I took a test and I
got started with the program.
So I guess the main reason I would say why
I joined Springboard would be course content
was fantastic, a fact that you had guided
mentorship and also the fact that there was
also a career services help which give you
know like job guarantee and stuff.
And that is difficult, it’s not like the
usual placements, it’s like a guidance that
you have from mentors and your career counsellors
across the entire course.
That helps them get to know you, that helps
you get to know yourself, your strengths,
your weaknesses and overall that helps you
in looking out for jobs once you finished
the program.
So my learning goal when I joined Springboard
was to be able to understand and master the
basics of data science.
I went through the course curriculum and that
seem to have everything from the very beginning
to the end.
And interestingly you know I discovered Springboard
through Prashant on LinkedIn, so that was
a very good start I would say and everything
that he had promised then actually holds true
even now.
The kind of access that I got was very important
for me and that I believe will help me go
a long way in my career.
So far my experience with Springboard has
been fantastic in the sense that I had a good
opportunity to interact with mentors.
I had a good opportunity to receive any help
if I have got stuck in any kind of technical
trouble, there would probably be obviously
somebody to bail me out, that was very helpful,
that was very fast.
Another important thing was that the curriculum
they had collated, It was very well curated,
I would say which is very different from a
lot of other platforms, so I believe that
was one of the biggest highlights about the
course.
So mentorship is one of the USP's that Springboard
that you can possibly experience and it’s
been very interesting for me because my mentor
has been monumental in helping me figure out
my career goals.
So not only has he had a chance to evaluate
me as a person with my skills, my pros and
cons.
It also helped me in identifying opportunities
which is very important I feel at this stage.
A lot of us seem to you know jump in to buzz
words you know, suppose neural network and
deep learnings buzz words, lot of us tend
to jump the gun and start the career there
without really understanding the intricacies
that are involved.
Because the definition of data science is
still evolving.
A lot of companies also don’t understand
how to actually make the most out of it.
So my mentor, who is you know a data scientist,
he helped me figure out quite a few things
when it came to aligning my career goals with
my interest, my passion and my abilities and
also to you know kind of look out for opportunities
that are right or we should be aware that
certain opportunities might not be the right
one for you.
Services that Springboard provides, one of
them is career services wherein essentially
you have career coaches you reach out to,
so you are expected to have a number of calls
across the period.
You have 8 calls that are schedule with your
career coach, in pivotal times throughout
your course.
And one of the coolest thing that I have experienced
was the interaction I had with my career coaches.
They obviously knew the industry, they knew
the trends, and they knew the hiring patterns.
They helped me figure out my Linkedin, they
helped me figure out my resume, they helped
me figure out the kind of place that would
be ideal in applying to.
And you know all it comes down as a fit and
they were helpful in helping me choose the
right path.
So sometimes the right path for you could
be joining an MNC, sometimes it’s to work
as a consultant.
The important part was that career coaches
knew the differences and they walked with
you as they supposed to tell you exactly what
to do.
They kind of helped you to figure what you
would be the most comfortable with and they
moved on from that.
contrary to popular belief that data science
does not start with machine learning, it’s
a lot of other things, understanding of domains,
it’s a quite a bit understanding of databases,
very underrated topic I would say.
No now my current work allows me to actually
explore the entire breadth of what data science
is.
So I get to deconstruct problems, I get to
understand the databases that are powering
it.
I get to delve in cloud computing because
when you are looking at scalability, you can’t
exactly do all of that from a desktop computer.
So these are the freedoms and flexibility
that I have gotten now and I would say that
with the help of Springboard, I have become
quite a bit confident in the kind of learning
that I have had and the kind of skills I can
impart and the kind of value I can generate
for my clients.
So yes, in that sense my career goals are
going in the track I anticipated.
