What I’ve Learned Leading a Data Science Consulting Team
Almost exactly one year ago, an old friend of mine asked if I wanted to grab lunch soon. That lunch would be the start of my involvement in Big Data at Berkeley — a mere idea at the time. The concept was simple: a data science consulting club merged with a bootcamp. We hoped to leverage the skills we’d learned till that point to increase the profile of data science on campus as well as help our community through our bootcamp and consulting projects. As VP of Consulting, I’d take the lead with both our campus efforts and my committee; I was also responsible for identifying and implementing opportunities that would maximize both real world experience for our consultants and our impact on local businesses. As part of that process, I was put in situations where I really had no idea what I was doing; however, in putting myself out there, I learned an incredible amount about myself. What follows are the key lessons I learnt and how they helped both me and Big Data at Berkeley succeed.
The First Step Is Always The Hardest
That lunch was after one (1) [singular] {yes just one} semester at UC Berkeley. That fact ominously hung over me whenever I thought about whether I truly could help start something like this. I had, quite literally, no experience with consulting. How was I possibly going to make this work? I’d barely learned about data science — hell, I hadn’t even taken Data 8 yet. These doubts rang in my ear constantly, and I often doubted my own ability to do what needed to be done to make this club a reality.
However, partly due to my fear of being seen as inadequate (imposter syndrome is real kids), or worse, being removed from my role, I didn’t address this feeling openly. Instead, I kept going and tackling the tasks at hand in an attempt to focus on the work and not my self-doubt. The voices in my head plagued me, but I kept taking that first step every week. Every time I started, my workload became a little bit simpler and a lot more manageable. As my doubts disappeared behind the focus of doing the work in front of me, it got easier and easier to take those steps, and I began to feel more confident in myself and my abilities.
Each milestone felt like reassurance that the work I was doing, the work we were doing, was making a difference. Getting approved as a student org on campus, receiving ASUC funding, affiliating with the Engineering Student Council, and completing the recruitment cycle were all huge boosts of confidence, and every step proved to me that our team could make this happen.
The first step will always be incredibly challenging. And there will always be reasons not to take that leap — you don’t have enough experience, it’s too hard, you don’t have enough time. But, to quote a friend:
“As the rappers say, ‘F*** the haters!’”
Even when your biggest haters are, well, you.
Teamwork Really Does Make The Dream Work
When we’d finally finished our recruitment cycle, we had our very first project to work on. Our client was Perkville, an innovative company using reward systems to incentivize customer engagement. My team of five consultants and I were tasked with developing a customer churn prediction model for them, using the data they had collected. Needless to say, there were many challenges we’d need to overcome in order to complete this project on time, of which the most important was how to organize and divide our work amongst our group of 6 people. I’d never worked on a data science project with other people before, and now we faced issues I was wholly unprepared to deal with. Some, I’m still unsure of. How do I split the project into smaller parts to delegate? What do I need to do to run a meeting? How do we keep track of all our data? These questions needed to be addressed quickly, but I didn’t know how to.
As much as I’d want to believe otherwise, there was undoubtedly a little pride and ego preventing me from just asking for help outright. Our VP of Finance, Ronak Laddha, had worked on consulting projects before, but I wasn’t ready to ask him for his advice — which is why he made it a lot easier for me when he approached me, asking if he could do anything to help me out. I am glad I didn’t turn down that offer. With his support, I was able to prepare for crucial conversations with our clients. He helped me break down our project into various components that we could handle with greater ease, and identify multiple ways to address our data storage needs. He reminded me of the importance of asking for help, but more importantly, the need for teamwork. Data science, and life in general, are collaborative activities. I could face, and handle, life’s challenges alone, but they are much simpler when I work with others to overcome them.
If that wasn’t enough of a reminder, there are several moments I look back at with awe and appreciation. All of them share the same story arc — a consultant struggling with an important part of their work, spending hours trying to fix their problems alone, before working with another consultant and quickly finding resolutions. What makes me so amazed is that the consultants who were helping out those in need weren’t solving five-minute issues. They spent hours in Haas Pavilion or at Moffitt Library working to help their teammates and friends move forward. I had no hand in making that happen. This was them choosing to help each other grow and succeed — playing a crucial role in developing a culture that embraces and encourages collaboration. This was them choosing to work as a team.
Moving Forward
I know I have a lot to learn. It almost seems as though the more I learn, the more questions I have and the less I seem to understand. But I’m excited for what’s ahead. I’m excited to challenge myself with new opportunities and new experiences, and I’m excited to have some amazing people by my side as I go through them. Big Data has privileged me with this incredible opportunity, and I intend to not just return the favor, but also pass it on. Our Projects Committee is expanding as we seek to broaden our impact, both on campus and in our local community. I don’t know what’s in store for us as we enter our second semester, but I know that I want to make it better. I want a better experience for our consultants, better results for our clients, and a better semester for Big Data at Berkeley. And I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.
