3 More Unique and Impactful Projects to get a Data Science Job

i made a video a couple weeks back about the best data science project which is research with a professor it's unique kills like three birds with one stone and is full of impact which is the most important measure of a good data scientist so i still think it's the best option if you happen to be in school and have three months to a year left where you have to start applying to internships or jobs that being said though i have gotten some really valid feedback from people who are out of school or simply don't have three months to a year left before recruiting season begins so i'm back today with three more unique and impactful data science projects that will make your resume stand out and these are also accessible to those of you who are out of school too and even more good news even if you're just a few weeks away from when you start applying don't think that you don't have enough time depending on how much time that you do have left there's plenty of ways to actually get something on your resume quickly that actually also looks super impressive side note this is not some sort of fast trickery activity or lying on your resume though which i think is always a terrible idea i'm just showing you some of these opportunities but remember it's still up to you to put in the effort let's jump into it

pro bono consulting is a really cool option that i feel like just isn't talked about very much at all maybe because people see it as some sort of business school thing and don't see how it's relevant to data science or i don't know maybe they feel like they just don't have enough skills to actually make a difference in industry and whatever the case may be this is actually an amazing chance to have an impact in industry universities usually have consulting clubs usually through the business school with the school branding industry clients would reach out and put in requests for consulting work that ranges across a variety of different things don't worry if you're not in school though there's also lots of pro bono consulting gigs out there for example there's taproot foundation it's a national nonprofit that connects non-profits and social change organizations with volunteers and you can be that volunteer there's also a catch fire no catch a fire that aims to strengthen social good and finally there's bula that has a really interesting model actually it enables skilled volunteers to donate their services which are hired by businesses and the public in exchange for a fee which they then donate to the charity of their choice i personally went through the university consulting group but if i were transitioning to data science and i'm now out of school i would definitely have my eyes out for these opportunities let me also give you guys an example of what a consulting project may look like a company recently realized the importance of social media um a little late but better late than never right so they jumped on board with social media marketing and after a few months they realized though that the results they had was a little short of what they knew is possible with social media marketing they would like to analyze their social media strategy and identify opportunities for improvement and that's where you come in let's also do another example because why not right a dance studio is looking into expanding outside of just teaching classes they're also interested in a few different opportunities maybe like selling merch selling health products or offering private lessons to corporate partners they don't know which is the best investment opportunity and so we're asking for opportunity sizing of all these options to see which one is the best i personally love these kinds of projects and i can give you examples for days across so many different industries but you get the gist of it i hope you can also see that these are actually really data-driven opportunities you can offer your data science skills and take over the analytics portion of the consulting gig to help companies such as these as a personal example uh because i was part of the pro bono consulting club by upenn i took on this project um specifically the analytics portion of it and used python and just like a little bit of machine learning to help the company analyze their instagram and facebook social media marketing strategies so why is pro bono consulting such an amazing project well the most important reason is because this type of project has clear and tangible impact you're literally helping a company solve a problem figure out what is going wrong or driving a decision it's also really unique because the data you analyze is specific to this particular project and the way you choose to analyze the data is tailored specifically as well to answer the question at hand there's really so much valuable nuance here bonus point two because this is also a project that emphasizes those soft skills you have to present and communicate your findings and recommendations to the client in an efficient and professional manner these soft skills are just as important as technical skills to be a good data scientist so i hope i've convinced you to take a closer look at pro bono consulting

before we go on to project number two i just wanted to take a quick pause and say welcome to everybody that's new on this channel and also thank you so much to everyone that has supported me from day one day 10 just everybody in the past couple of months i'm so grateful that you guys are here i'm planning to also shoot a proper intro video because i realized i never properly introduced myself um but for now i just wanted to say thank you so much for watching and supporting me alright number two

open source projects are not just reserved for engineers there's also lots of data projects this is another great option open to students and non-students experienced and inexperienced data scientists check out ovo. org a platform that lists open source projects i just took a look and there are several kobit 19 related projects as expected but there's also ones that have to do with deep learning education and many other social good projects such as accessibility welfare and comprehensive food networks many of these have several open issues that you can jump in and help immediately open source projects are great because they have a very clear impact value you also get to work closely with other people be it data scientists engineers or even business people the work you do is super meaningful and you also learn a lot as a bonus meeting people already in industry also doesn't hurt opportunity leads to more opportunity oh by the way don't worry if you feel like you're not skilled enough there's people of all different levels and everybody has to start somewhere right just go in respectful open-minded and eager to learn and you'll be surprised by how nice people are and willing to help so if you haven't already i highly recommend checking out open source projects that you find interesting and just dive in

hackathons and data thoughts which are data specific hackathons are especially great if you're cutting close to the application time a month out or even a couple weeks because you're essentially forced to complete a project in a very short amount of time if you're in university you probably already know that there's always so many of these going on all the time and i would be very surprised you can't find one either at your school or at other universities nearby now if you're not in school but just graduated maybe a couple years ago you can also email them to ask if you can attend as a personal anecdote i've organized a hackathon before and there were definitely people who graduated and reached out to us they can still come and we were like yeah like why not right that's completely fine and don't think it's weird remember there's also grad students that attend these so you know you're probably not going to be the oldest one if that's what you're worried about finally if you're many years out of college and slash or very uncomfortable hanging out with youths don't worry there's also hackathons and other competition style events that are really similar to hackathons but these are for people outside of school for example check out angelhack. com there's actually one coming up september 21st for aws and adobe aws in particular i think you can do a lot of cool ml stuff with your ml suite there's also hackathon. io where organizations and these groups of people post upcoming hackathons and datathons some of these are geared towards students but others are open to all so definitely keep an eye out there as well i think hackathons and datathons are better than just doing a personal project because they usually give you a theme or something to work off that helps you find make a final product that's more unique and impactful it also emphasizes those soft skills that we keep talking about and it shows that you can work in a team and present your work plus maybe you win a prize we're ranking to hack with our datathon and that always looks good on your resume and also makes you feel good about yourself

alright so in summary we talked about three unique and impactful project ideas that can really boost up your resume these are pro bono consulting open source projects and last but not least hackathons and data thoughts whether you're in school or out of school have three weeks or half a year or more before applying for internships and jobs and no matter your experience level i think you'll definitely be able to do one of these projects i'm also really confident that you'll find something interesting and you'll learn a ton as well there's just so many options out there so get excited well i hope you guys enjoyed this video and thank you so much for watching i will see you in the next video