{"id":4733,"date":"2018-09-20T18:44:44","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T01:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/?p=4733"},"modified":"2023-07-07T16:00:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T23:00:08","slug":"data-science-duos-community-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/data-science\/data-science-duos-community-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Community: A Data Science Duo’s Powerful Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meghan Thomason and Heather Passmore officially met for the first time <\/span>IRL<\/span><\/i> earlier this month at Springboard Rise, our first offline community event. But their friendship began online about a year ago, as they both started the Data Science Career Track with shockingly similar backgrounds.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meghan has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis, and learned complex statistical techniques to evaluate data during the course of her studies, leading her to consider data science as a career. She also is the mother to twins.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather has a Ph.D. in ecology from Louisiana State University and minored in applied statistics during her doctoral studies, prompting her to consider data science as a career. And she just happens to have twins as well.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have several interests and experiences in common and that really helped us connect and get a lot of benefits from sharing our Springboard experiences,\u201d Heather said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Heather<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather Passmore, Meghan Thomason, with Springboard’s Catherina Leipold<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two have a mutual friend\u2014and Meghan\u2019s LinkedIn research skills\u2014to thank for their relationship. Since they were second-degree connections on LinkedIn, as Meghan was exploring data science education options, she reached out to ask Heather about her Springboard experience. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather had only completed a month of the Data Science Career Track before taking a short break to move to Washington, D.C. By the time she restarted the course, San Francisco-based Meghan had enrolled and the two became study buddies. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They scheduled weekly Google Hangouts to discuss the course, their mentors, and their projects. They also used Google Docs to share resources and set goals, holding each other accountable.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe supported each other during ups and downs and shared our experiences along the way,\u201d Heather said. \u201cI believe that having a peer mentor contributed to my success in the program.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was extremely valuable to have a peer with such similar background to share tips, experiences, struggles, and successes,\u201d Meghan said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of community during an online course cannot be overstated. Both women combined Springboard\u2019s community platform with their own Slack groups and their regular one-on-ones to successfully complete the course. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving a community focused on accomplishing the same goal is crucial for staying motivated and on task,\u201d said Meghan, who still follows forums and posts occasionally as an alum.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Meghan<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Springboard Rise<\/span><\/a> was an opportunity to bring that online community offline for a weekend of learning, networking, and fun. But for Meghan and Heather, it also was a chance to celebrate a year of friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a seamless transition moving from Google Hangouts to chatting IRL,\u201d Meghan said. \u201cPlus it was fun to tell people how we met and how many things we had in common.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both women recently graduated from the program and are shifting into data science careers. Heather is in the thick of the job hunt, looking for opportunities to use educational data to help make decisions that improve learning outcomes for K-12, higher education, or online learning. Meghan is a month into a data science job at a digital publishing startup.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ll continue to support each other as they begin this new chapter of their professional lives. And they hope their experience inspires other Springboard students. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis story isn\u2019t suggesting that you need to be in the same field and have a lot in common with your peer-to-peer mentor or study buddy,\u201d Heather said. \u201cOur story <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> saying that having direct contact with one or more students who are in the same track as you can really help. I maintained regular messaging via Hangouts with another Springboard classmate who contacted me via LinkedIn as he started the program. We come from different professional backgrounds, but found we could help each other and get feedback when we needed it. Find your buddy and stay in touch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Get To Know Other\tData Science Students<\/h4>
\"Abby<\/a>

Abby Morgan<\/p>

Data Scientist at NPD Group<\/p><\/div>

<\/div>

Read Story<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>

\"Jasmine<\/a>

Jasmine Kyung<\/p>

Senior Operations Engineer at Raytheon Technologies<\/p><\/div>

Read Story<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>

\"Esme<\/a>

Esme Gaisford<\/p>

Senior Quantitative Data Analyst at Pandora<\/p><\/div>

Read Story<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Why Springboard?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heather and Meghan considered several other training options, but opted for Springboard because of the job guarantee, mentorship, and flexibility. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have school-age children and we were moving halfway across the country, so I needed the flexibility of setting my own pace and working from home,\u201d Heather said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike Heather, I have young children and was planning to leave my job, which meant two things: we could no longer afford childcare, and therefore would need flexibility in order to provide that care when my wife was at work,\u201d Meghan said. \u201cI found that some of the shorter programs either required me to attend in-person, or required 10-plus hours per day, but neither of these requirements were going to work for my family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are studying data science<\/a> and want to become a professional data scientist<\/a>, staying in touch with your classmates and discussing projects and study material through various platforms can smooth your path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Since you\u2019re here\u2026<\/strong>Are you interested in this career track? Investigate with our free guide to what a data professional actually<\/em> does<\/a>. When you\u2019re ready to build a CV that will make hiring managers melt, join our Data Science Bootcamp<\/a> which will help you land a job or your tuition back!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meghan Thomason and Heather Passmore officially met for the first time IRL earlier this month at Springboard Rise, our first offline community event. But their friendship began online about a year ago, as they both started the Data Science Career Track with shockingly similar backgrounds. Meghan has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":4737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_eb_data_table":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"marketing_tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-data-science"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4733"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47556,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions\/47556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4733"},{"taxonomy":"marketing_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/marketing_tags?post=4733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}