This summer, students, professionals, and instructors in the Accelerated Data Science Program have been in class from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days a week. This schedule – daunting to many students at first – has been designed with a face-paced, collaborative environment to train them for careers in data science.

The 12-week program with Flatiron School is the first of its kind: this is the first time Flatiron has offered their courses to undergraduate students, and the bootcamp-plus-liberal-arts curriculum is new to the state of Alabama. BSC students, undergraduates from other institutions, and working professionals enrolled in the program have been impressed by how much they have accomplished.

Current BSC applied computer science major Chandler O’Neal says the program reminds him of the intensity of his month-long sea kayaking and backpacking expedition in Norway. Both experiences have required perseverance, focus, and rigor that provide a rewarding perspective on his ability to learn.

“The ability to walk into a summer program with little to no background in data science and walk away with an internship made it a no-brainer for me,” O’Neal says. “Where, in the past, I did not see instances in which I personally could apply statistics in the real world, data science has taught me that I can not only apply it in business but also in everyday life.”

Fellow BSC student Kamryn Bendolph is also enrolled in the program and has been able to combine the skills she’s learning with Flatiron to her major in health sciences, preparing her for her goal to be a genomic data scientist.

“As I looked more closely into the program, I saw that there are career opportunities that will allow me to merge both my interest in health science and technology,” she says. “With the emerging field of personalized medicine and the influx of data that is used in hospitals, clinical trials, and different types of research, it has become apparent that there is an inherent need for data scientists in health care.”

How the Program Works

The program is made up of four courses, or phases, that each last three weeks and keep the same structure: two weeks of lectures, checkpoint quizzes, and labs, and one week of student-driven work on a group project. Project week stands out to most of the students.

“One of my favorite parts about the program is that we can submit our own ideas or questions for our projects, provided we have a dataset that supports it,” says Jake Hoogstra, a management information systems major from the University of Alabama. “It’s a lot easier to be creative and explore new things during project week when you and your teammates are excited about what you’re working on.”

Each of the four phases builds on the last: (1) students are first introduced to programming and important tools like Python, Jupyter Notebooks, and SQL; (2) courses cover statistical analysis, probability, statistical distributions, and hypothesis testing; (3) student focus on machine learning and best practices within different business domains; (4) and students complete the program with advanced data science topics including unsupervised learning, natural language processing, and neural networks.

For Students and Professionals Alike

The intensity of the material and the real-world collaborative projects are designed to challenge students, but this has helped push them to learn the material and apply it to multiple different industries. Josh Hill, who currently works in the client experience department at ProctorU, has worked with data analytics before but wanted a stronger foundation before he makes a career change into cybersecurity or cloud-based network administration.

“The projects have given me a chance to test out these new skills in a controlled environment and produce something I never could have made on my own,” Hill says. “Each member of the instructional staff wants nothing more than for us to excel. This energy and passion for our success is infectious and keeps me pushing past momentary frustration to overcome any challenge placed in front of me.”

BSC alumna and Birmingham professional CeCe Lacey ’12 also entered the program from a different field, seeing the benefits of gaining new skills in data science. Lacey studied Spanish at BSC, earned her master’s degree in education policy and management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and has worked with Impact America, the Birmingham Education Foundation, Magic City Acceptance Academy, and The Exceptional Foundation.

“I have spent the last nine years in the education and nonprofit space learning and working with my community,” she says. “Moving forward, I hope to find a way to combine my data science skills with my prior experiences in order to help create more equitable access to education, resources, and jobs in Birmingham.”

New Step for Birmingham

The program will place data science students with companies in Birmingham, whether they’re like Lacey, with existing connections to the Magic City, or new graduates beginning their careers. With newfound data science knowledge and a place in the professional world, data science students are sure to impact the city.

“From day one, President Coleman made it clear his goal was to bring data science to the city of Birmingham, and this was the first step in doing so,” says Matt Carr, data science coach and Flatiron instructor.

Over the summer, employees from the program’s partnering companies, including Shipt, Regions, and Airship, visited classes and spoke with students about work opportunities and real-world application of data science. The program is much larger than BSC – it will transform Birmingham and set up students to enter a growing, revolutionary field.

“Not only is everyone enrolled in the program walking away with a new, highly valued skillset, but they will also use it to help grow the data science community in Birmingham,” Carr says. “I think it was these additional opportunities for the students and knowing the larger goal of this program that made it extremely valuable and also really exciting to be a part of.”

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Students will present their final projects during a Data Science Fair in Norton Campus Center on Friday, August 13. Representatives from the Data Science Advisory Council, including Shipt and Regions, will be on hand, as well as representatives from several other Birmingham-area companies. In the afternoon, students will participate in a “speed-dating” style round of interviews with companies to be placed in internships during the fall or spring terms.

Learn more about the Accelerated Data Science Program at bsc.edu/academics/datascience.