Data Science Summer Placements
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During your MSc in Data Science at Lancaster University you will undertake a 12 week industry placement and complete a final dissertation. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to explore your specific areas of interest, acquire new skills and work closely with your placement host in a business or academic environment.
I am currently on placement with Yordas Group who are based on the University campus. They are a leading international provider of scientific, environmental, human health, global regulatory and sustainability services. The IT team at Yordas have created authoring software to facilitate the entry of complex and standardised chemical phrases into safety data sheets (SDS). A corpus of time series data relating to phrase searches, selections and translations were made available at the start of the project.
My project was based around integrating contemporary Data Science and machine learning techniques to create a smart predictive text model, enabling the authoring experts at Yordas to be presented with smart search suggestions when searching for phrases based on the logged user behaviours.
Although I am only 6 weeks into the 12 week placement, I can confidently tell you the placement experience has been one of the highlights of my University experience. Being able to work closely with businesses on complex projects during your degree and understanding how projects are managed in a business environment is an extremely valuable experience to have for a Data Science graduate given the practical nature of the discipline. Weekly meetings with the IT team and consultants at Yordas has significantly improved my communication skills and confidence, enabling me to communicate my work to those with and without domain expertise.
If you show enthusiasm for your project and work hard over the 12 weeks, you may even be presented with an opportunity to continue your work in a full-time position with your placement host!
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