Data analytics games provide education, professional opportunities, fun
Data analytics games provide education, professional opportunities, fun
Data analytics games provide education, professional opportunities, fun
By Adriana Aumen
November 30, 2020
Summary
Working to build community among students learning remotely this fall, expert problem solvers in the data analytics program at Washington State University designed course-related games to stimulate interaction while providing some educational fun and valuable professional networking opportunities.
In collaboration with academic advisors for the WSU Pullman, Everett, Vancouver, and Global campuses, the program director and statistics professor Nairanjana "Jan" Dasgupta brought together students from across the U.S. outside of class time to play online Data Analytics Bingo and a pandemic-inspired False Positive game.
While all the Bingo players learned about their diverse study options, the four winning students each received a unique and valuable prize: a half-hour, one-on-one conversation with a leading professional in data science.
Nathan Shine, a 22-year-old senior from Kent, Washington, played DA Bingo from his room in the Chi Alpha fraternity house at WSU Pullman and won the opportunity to talk with a high-level data analyst at a major online services company.
"I was eager to learn what a day in the life of a data scientist looks like - what projects they work on and what tools they use - and about entry-level data science/analytics positions and how to build a portfolio of projects online," he said.
Shine chose to major in data analytics because "I like being able to find out new things in data that is otherwise too 'noisy' to decipher," he said.
"I hope to find a full-time position where I can use my data analytics skills to make it easier for businesses to make decisions."
Global Campus student and DA Bingo winner Lara Mechling, a 32-year-old junior from Knoxville, Tennessee, spoke with WSU College of Arts and Sciences dean and data mining expert Matt Jockers, whose early career spanned teaching and publishing about literature at Stanford University to software engineering at Apple.
Meeting experienced data scientists enhances students' classroom education, Dasgupta said.
Mechling studies data analytics because she enjoys solving problems, she said, and she chose WSU's DA program because "It's so well rounded." She has already leveraged the skills gained in her introductory DA class to help faculty at the community college where she works identify factors involved in student retention.
Reference
Aumen, A. (2020, November 30). Data analytics games provide education, professional opportunities, fun: WSU Insider: Washington State University. Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://news.wsu.edu/2020/11/30/data-analytics-games-provide-education-professional-opportunities-fun/