Science to Data Science

I decided to enroll into the March 2017 Virtual S2DS programme, and I did not regret it! At that time I was finishing up my postdoc, and was ready to get some experience of what an industrial data science project feels like.

Pivigo split us into teams, and each team was assigned a client company, to whom we were essentially delivering a data science project, with specific deliverables. We followed the agile methodology, with frequent commits to our codebase, and regular updates and Q&A sessions with the client company.

My teammates were friendly, collaborative, keen to learn, and smart. The mentors and Pivigo staff were very supportive during the program, and mediated our conversations with the client company effectively.

Even though this was a remote programme, due to the constant communication via online tools such as Slack, Google Hangouts and others, the ride was smooth. Furthermore, Pivigo organized numerous Q&A sessions with experienced data scientists, which really helped in answering pressing questions about how to make it as a data scientist out there. 

If you already have a grasp of statistics, machine learning and programming, this bootcamp will help you get practical experience working on a real-world project. Even though at times it was challenging, overall I found it very rewarding and worth the effort. highly recommend it!

Being still undecided whether to leave academia or not, I decided to participate in the S2DS bootcamp to get a flavour of what the life of a Data Scientist in a commercial environment would be. And all I can say is that this has been a great decision.

I opted for the S2DS Virtiual course because, due to family constraints, I would have not been able to move for 5 weeks to London, although I was a bit skeptical about the online format. I knew people who participated in S2DS London in the previous years and they all enjoyed and reccommended it, but I was not sure the Virtual course would be as engaging as the residential one.Truth is that the team at Pivigo are really great at running the course and are able to make the online course feel almost as a residential one!

The format is really good and it makes you (or at least me) realise that as a PhD/Postdoc what one is missing for a successful as a commercial Data Scientist is not technical skills but the soft skills to adapt to a different way of working.

The projects are generally quite interesting and the company mentors are very engaged and helpful and the staff at Pivigo is extremely helpful and supportive.

Being part of the S2DS Alumni community is a great way to start a professional network of data scientists and industry experts, a crucial element when looking for your first data science job outside the academic world. Although the course (and the related network) is quite UK centric, including it in your CV will boost your value in the eyes of recruiters and companies all over Europe.

In conclusion, I would definitely reccommend S2DS to anyone looking to transition from Academia to a commercial Data Science role! It will help you a lot in jump-starting your new career and, most of all, you will truly enjoy it!

I had a previous experience as a Post-Doc in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology within the academic set-up before enrolling on the 'SCIENCE TO DATA SCIENCE VIRTUAL' . I was interested in gaining experience in the applicatrion of machine learning to 'BIG DATA'. S2DS provided me with an excellent opportunity to do just that in the sense that I had the opportunity of developing my machine learning skills on a project which involved analysis of large datasets provided by an online marketing company. Apart from the project I was able to interact meaningfully with the other would-be Data Scientists, and also gained experience of working in a remote virtual environment. I recommend the 'SCIENCE TO DATA SCIENCE VIRTUAL' to any aspiring Data Scientist who are unbale to go to S2DS in London.

I had been waiting to move into Data Science from Academia for over a year and S2DS gave me the start I needed. I couldn't wait for the live corse so did the virtual one and recommend it if you are in the same position. You have to be motivated but the instrutors on the course do their very best to help with multiple checkins and are always on hand to give advise. I got to meet every person on the course with arranged one-to-one chats so I didn't feel like I was doing this alone. 

After the course I used the project I did and what I learnt from it in interviews to help me get a job. It gace the interviewers something to ask about and me something to talk about to show I understood not only data science but industry. And when it came to getting a second job, I went through the S2DS alumni groups and got a fantastic job thorugh their carrers area. 

Definitely worth the effort and time to take this program if you are interested in a carrer in data science. It's a great gateway in. 

From the day I decided to switch from academia to data science; this course was on the top of my list. I was originally planning to do the on site course but the on-line course tunred out to be the better option (no UK visa hassles for me). The course was intense but for a good reason and it gave me a sense of how data science roles are in real commercial settings. Our team of three, had great mentors both from course side and the company providing our porject. Although I already had quite good technical skills, the course thought me a lot. My biggest achievment was how to work in collabration with others toward the same goal in a short time frame. I also learned how to look at analytical problems from a commercial view point. 

In the end, beside the great experince from the course itself, I had a better understanding of what a data science do and what type of roles I would be better to apply. Eventhough they mainly help for looking jobs in the UK, by just adding the course to my CV I were asked for more interviews outside of UK and I was able to show case my performance potential in a commercial settings.

I highly recommand this course for all the academics who are planning to pursue a data analytic career.

If you are in academia and wonder if data science would be a good or feasible idea for a new career (hint: it is), this is what you are looking for. 

S2DS gave me the hands-on experience I needed to be confident about my potential and perspectives in data science. This is something that any MOOC or Kaggle competition would never be able to give you. I can't stress enough the importance of working in a team for a company whilst trying to solve a business problem. The value of such an experience is incommensurable, and you will take advantage of it on your CV and during job interviews. 

S2DS also gives you access to a network of data scientists, career advice, and job leads, all extremely helpful for your future data science career. 

All this comes in the form of quite an intense but very enjoyable 5-week experience, where you'll be in the company of very like-minded people. The opportunity to meet and discuss all sort of ideas with other participants is another invaluable perk. 

I was quite suprised by how well the virtual program worked, despite having to work remotely with people from all corners of the continent. That definitely worked much better than I expected. 

In short, if you are an academic looking to jump into the data science endeavour, S2DS is a no-brainer. 

Before finding out about S2DS I had already decided that I wanted to move into data science, so before applying I had been working my way through a few online courses, as a way to get a broader understanding of the skills needed in data science. And worked on a couple of personal projects based on public datasets, just to get a feel for using some of the tools and an understanding of what public datasets look like. On the programme there was a good mix of people with different skill sets, which was helpful when getting stuck with a problem, as there was someone who was able to give me an idea of how to fix it or another way of looking at it.

I was one of the people that took part in the very first virtual programme, meaning it was a new experience for all involved, so there was no set rules about the way to work, we had to experiment and find what worked best for us. The way they do things now may have changed slightly, as they refined the programme, but the main way of working (conference video calls with all members and group skype sessions) should be the same. The members of my team were only a short distance from London (purely by chance), but all the other teams had their members spread all across Europe.

Doing the virtual programme didn't hinder my learning experience, because a lot of the learning involved going off and exploring how to do something. Then afterwards reporting back to the team, by sharing links to examples, useful info or some graphs that you had produced. And if we needed to talk, we just started a skype call or google hangout. I had done remote working as part of my PhD, so was happy with the idea of it, and I had been thinking about doing a data science programme for a while and when I saw the first S2DS virtual advertised in their newsletter, I was very keen to give it a try.

I was happy I gave the programme a try, as it gave me a better understanding of the business side of data science and helped me make a number of useful contacts. And I notice that after putting S2DS on my CV, I was getting through to more job interviews and it was something that a number of interviewers were interested in talking about. So it was helpful as a real world example, that I could use to explain how I had tackled challenges, met key goals and interesting facts I found out. And the people from S2DS continue to be very helpful after the programme, with advice and informing me about job events.