Age: 28
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Previous Degree and Major: B.A. Political Science
Pre-IPSDS Work Experience (years, industry): 2 years, market research
Why IPSDS program? Why now?
Before joining the IPSDS program, I worked as a market researcher, but switched to a data scientist position during the program. What I like most about the courses is that you can learn new concepts in a relatively short time and apply them directly into practice at work. For example, I used the (dis)similarity measures I learned about in the record linkage course in a variety of problems when working with text data. The data confidentiality course motivated me to learn more about Bayesian statistics and apply them for improving experiments on our website. I‘d recommend the program to all people working with data who want to understand why their data, be it big or small, is probably not objective or raw and want to enable themselves and others to be better at data-driven decision making.
Age: 34
Hometown: Offenbach, Germany
Previous Degree and Major: B.Sc Central banking
Pre-IPSDS Work Experience (years, industry): 6 years, Central bank / Research / Survey Practice
Why IPSDS program? Why now?
Since 2015 I am working at the Research Centre of Deutsche Bundesbank for the team that conducts a big complex household wealth survey. Besides my practical work, I was at every point in my life interested in statistics and analytics as well as in programming and computer science. For me it was a pleasure to find a program like the IPSDS, because I expected that the combination of Survey and Data Science could boost my skills to the next level. All my expectations are met so far. The ability of solving complex problems related to survey by applying well-founded survey methods and making innovative suggestions to the team to process are only excerpts of the possibilities that were offered to me by taking courses of the IPSDS. I would recommend the program to everyone dealing with micro data and is open for fresh ideas and exchange with an international community of competent experts.
Age: 34
Hometown: Utena, Lithuania
Previous Degree and Major: Master’s degree in Political and Social Sciences
Pre-IPSDS Work Experience (years, industry): 9 years, statistics and data analysis
Why IPSDS program? Why now?
I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and a Master’s degree in Political and Social Sciences, however almost my entire work experience is related to data processing and analysis. It was this gap between my educational and professional background that made me think of going back to school again. As I wanted to continue working full time, my main criteria for an educational program was flexibility, at the same time, I wanted to feel engaged, that is, to become a real student again. Hence IPSDS was exactly what I was looking for and even more. Now, at the point of graduating from the program, I can firmly say that it has far exceeded my expectations: it provided me with a solid background in statistics and data science narrowing my gap, it allowed me to continue studying even after my baby-daughter was born, and it made me feel a part of a wider data science community that IPSDS brings together every year, last but not least it enabled me to join NATO International Staff, Defence Planning Directorate, as Principal Economic and Financial Data Analyst.