This Alum Found a Fresh Start and New Career as a Data Scientist

Britta B. has always had an analytical mind. She studied psychology and statistics in college and had a job in market research after graduation. 

Her career path followed some unexpected detours: She was a personal assistant to a global CEO before he quit the company and purchased a hotel. He asked Britta to run the hotel and did that for seven years.

When the CEO-turned-hotelier sold the business, she took a year sabbatical to think about her future and career. Britta returned to a subject she loved in college for inspiration. “I decided on Data Science because it was a topic that always intrigued me in my studies,” she says.

Britta wanted to understand what data science was really about it beyond just being a buzzword. “It’s certainly about data and analyzing data, but it was something I did in statistics,” she says. “It’s just a step up to go from statistics to data science. And it’s quite sexy, right?”

Her first attempt at transitioning to a career in data science began and ended in less than two weeks. “I enrolled in a data science bootcamp in Germany, but quit after 10 days,” Britta says. “It was more of a course for mathematics experts to advance their skills.” Instead of trying another bootcamp in Germany, she decided to look to the United States to pursue her new career. After reading some reviews, she chose Flatiron School’s Online Data Science program.

At Flatiron School, she discovered a positive and supportive community. “I never heard one word of rejection,” she says. “It was a very supportive culture. I never experienced anything like that.”

The Data Science Bootcamp Prep course was a great introduction and helped everyone get on the same page. She had experience with Python, but she was introduced to Anaconda, Jupyter notebooks, and Github during the immersive Data Science program.

While she expected to learn the necessary skills to become a data scientist, she didn’t expect a dedicated Career Coach to help her through the job search. Flatiron School does everything it can to make you a data scientist and make you an attractive candidate.

The job search can be challenging even in a field that’s growing as rapidly as data science. My Career Coach helped me to stay motivated and to never lose confidence,” Britta says. That extra motivation helped her land a job as a data scientist in the U.K.

She just started her new job, so she’s spent more time onboarding than actually doing data science. But, she says she’s excited to be called a data scientist. One of her main responsibilities as a data scientist will be to forecast customer behavior.

Her advice to prospective data science students is to never stop learning. In a rapidly growing field like data science, there’s always going to be a new algorithm or method

Disclaimer: The information in this blog is current as of July 24, 2019. Current policies, offerings, procedures, and programs may differ.