Birmingham-Southern has just launched the Accelerated Data Science Program for summer 2021, but BSC students have long brought an interest in data to the College. Some recent alumni, like Andrew McMahon ’19 and William Dodson ’19, recognized the importance of the growing data science industry and decided to complete accelerated coursework after graduation.

McMahon, energy trader at Tios Capital, and Dodson, research assistant at NextSite, completed the TrueCoders bootcamp from January to March 2020. During the nine-week program, they learned important tools and languages for software engineering and web development that prepared them to step into data-related positions immediately. These are all skills that BSC students now have access to through the College’s partnership with Flatiron School.

For McMahon, TrueCoders was a huge turning point in his career plans. During his junior and senior years at BSC, he planned to attend law school and spent his first post-graduate year working as a paralegal in Birmingham and applying to schools. However, he began to miss the skills and thought processes he used as a math major at BSC.

Andrew McMahon ’19, energy trader at Tios Capital.

William Dodson ’19, research assistant at NextSite.

“After receiving a few acceptances, I realized that I did not actually want to be a lawyer,” McMahon says. “I found that I was deeply missing the opportunity to consistently work on quantitative problems and decided that I needed to find a career where I could practice my mathematic and data analysis skills more frequently.”

After doing some research on ways he could make this career switch, McMahon discovered the TrueCoders program. The curriculum provided him with the right essential data science and programming tools in a short amount of time.

Within a few weeks of completing the coursework, McMahon found his current role at Tios Capital as the primary trader for the mid-continental energy market. He analyzes weather, generation, and transmission data and builds mathematical models to predict energy prices.

Dodson, who also studied math at BSC, was struggling to decide what career to pursue and learned about TrueCoders through McMahon.

“I had a little bit of previous experience with coding and data analysis through Dr. Barton’s ‘Math Problem Solving in Business’ class, which helped generate my interest in that field,” Dodson says. “I decided that not only would the bootcamp help me find a job, but that it would go hand-in-hand with my background in math.”

The bootcamp helped Dodson find his engineering position at Healthgrades right after he completed the program. He decided that the position wasn’t the best fit for him, which led to him joining Nextsite in Sept. 2020, where he performs data analytics and GIS research for the commercial development advisory firm.

For both McMahon and Dodson, coding bootcamp played an essential role in how they built upon their existing skills and took a first step into the growing data science industry. The TrueCoders program, like BSC’s accelerated program, is designed to connect students to companies in Birmingham.

“I knew that I wanted to make a big change to my future, but I was not sure how to best maneuver this career switch,” McMahon says. “TrueCoders is where I gained many of the tools and connections I needed to successfully navigate this major career change in just a few months.”

Students who enroll in BSC’s data science program will gain these same skills. As the data science industry grows rapidly, students of all majors and career interests will benefit from the knowledge of retrieving and interpreting data. Plus, BSC’s program presents data science and real-world skills within the liberal arts mindset, making it the first program of its kind in Alabama.

“I’ve always enjoyed solving puzzles and finding the most efficient way to solve a problem, and I think in a lot of ways math and coding are similar in that regard,” Dodson says. “At the very least, the skills I’ve gained can serve as a supplement of sorts to the skillset I have now, regardless of what career field I end up in.”

BSC’s Accelerated Data Science Program: Summer 2021 is open to BSC and non-BSC undergraduates as well as Birmingham-area professionals. Learn more about the program and how to join the inaugural class at bsc.edu/academics/datascience. Applications are due by March 30.