Dylan Longley

Diogo Ribeiro

Can you tell us a bit about your major?

What I really like about my program is interacting with different types of audiences. In Data Science, you need to explain your data to different types of people; some may know what you are talking about, and others might not. Therefore, acquiring presentation skills is something I really enjoy in order to present my data.

What's the best part of living on campus?

Having most of my friends living close to me. I really like that I can go get food at IDX whenever I feel like it as well.

What advice do you have for students thinking about coming to Champlain for college?

If you decide to come to Champlain and are not too certain about what you want to major in, come in with an open mind and just experience the classes that your advisor puts in your schedule. Your advisor is going to help you find out what major fits best depending on what you like.

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Alex Dustin

Double Minor

Computer Science and Mathematics

Internship

Assistant Data Analyst at Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston, MA

Favorite Class

Advanced Data Analytics

What is the best thing about studying Data Science at Champlain?

I love the major. It’s relatively small, so I know everyone in all of my classes. I have all the same professors for most of my classes, and it’s nice to have a consistent classroom environment. With the Upside-Down Curriculum, I was engaged in my major from the start of my first semester.

Have you worked on any particularly rewarding projects?

One project I worked on in my Advanced Data Analytics class analyzed how names are pronounced. With that information, we generated a list of believable and pronounceable names. I found this particularly rewarding because I was able to use my knowledge from the class to make a practical application using our data.

Can you tell us about your internship?

I was an Assistant Data Analyst for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in their Office of Performance Management & Innovation. My classes prepared me for this experience because the problems I tackled at my internship were similar to ones I’d already faced in the classroom. This internship will give me a competitive advantage when I graduate, because now I have experience dealing with real-world problems in a professional working environment.

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Jon Trusheim

Double Minor

Computer Science and Mathematics

Internship

Research Associate Intern for MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation In Cambridge, MA

You switched majors from Game Programming to Data Science. How was that experience?

The Upside-Down Curriculum helped me realize that Game Programming wasn’t for me, but I knew I wanted to stay at Champlain because of the small classes and few tests. Dean Lawson—my advisor—and Wei Chan, the Assistant Dean for the division, suggested Data Analytics* because it was the mix of business and computer science that I wanted.
*Program name changed to Data Science for Fall 2020

What do you like most about the Data Science program?

I love the puzzle of working with different datasets. Each one has a question to answer, and it’s a fun adventure to figure out if the data answers or doesn’t answer that question. I’ve also loved all my classes with Narine Hall, because she is so willing to change up the class pacing based on how well we understand the material.

Do you feel prepared to graduate?

Yes. A lot of the master’s degrees that I was looking at seem to overlap a lot with the work that I was doing already in my classes. So yes, I do feel prepared for going out into the workforce.

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