UChicago Data and Policy Summer Scholar Program - Q&A with Alumni

Hello everyone welcome to the University of Chicago's web and are about the data and policy summer scholar program. I want to begin by testing the audio so participants. Please use the chat feature to indicate to me that you are able to hear this audio.

Again, at this moment, we are just testing the audio to ensure all of our technology is working well.

Wonderful we're getting good feedback that the audio is working well so we're going to go ahead and dive in so it's big in. I want to thank you. All for joining us today. As I just said. We are focusing on the University of Chicago's data and Polisy Summer Scholar Program. This is a four week. Non degree program hosted by U Chicago's Harris School of public policy, and today's webinar is extra special.

Because we have alumni from this four week program here on the call today to chat with you all and so it's going to be a great time to have some Live Q&A. But before we dive into that all first. I'll introduce myself, my name is Andy Ingram Eccles. My pronouns are she and her and I am. The program coordinator for this summer program so I have the pleasure working with you all through the.

Admissions process and then get to engage with you while you're here on the Chicago campus and then I have to get to work with you as an alumni, which is how you have some alumni here to chat with you today. They've been so gracious to give their time to chat with us today. So the first give you a bit of a road map. I am trying to click on to my next slide here, so, give me just one moment.

Here we are so if we're in a bit of agenda first. I'd like to give you a 510 minute program overview. For those who may not be very familiar with this program and I would like to add here. This web and R will give you a quick overview and get some good Q&A time. But if you do have further questions after today than one please. Email me, I'm happy to chat with you 1 on one on the Phone or by email or also we are hosting.

Another web and are the 1st week of December. December specifically on December 4th. An I'll be joined with the program director Schilling Leo and she and I will go more in depth about the academics. The professional development and the student life experience and so again will have more opportunity. More detailed about the program that today's overview will be quick, so we can maximize our time with our line.

And then the bulk of the program working with our alumni due to the time zone difference. We do have 3 recorded interviews with our alumni who couldn't are probably asleep right now, so will first play through those 3 recordings and then we have 3 alumni who are on the call unable to answer Live Q&A directly with us today.

And with that let's dive in.

So first I'd like to begin with the University of Chicago as a whole and something that we have here on campus known as the uchicago wait if you know anything about the University of Chicago. Probably the Top things that come to mind is Academical rigor or academic excellence. Certainly the University has over 92 Nobel Prize winners. About 7:00 or 8 of them are currently teaching here at the hair school public policy or the Blue School of Business.

We've LED trend setting in the field of Economics and sociology. And now in public policy as well. But more importantly at personally? How would say that infects affect students is we really challenge. The status quo. We ask why are things the way they are and are proposing ideas to change that to change the status quo? How can we make these policies more equitable? Why is it that we continue to have systemic problems?

Interns of equity or climate change or crime. All these big issues that our world is addressing today. the University of Chicago has a Research Center has student groups panel discussions experts coming in and having those key conversations.

So if you were to join us for this for week summer program. You would definitely be exposed to some of those great conversations and status quo challenges.

I'm gonna start look like specifically in terms of academics.

In this program, you are taking 3 courses. You are taking a course in quantitative analysis and public policy. That's very similar to a statistics or econometrics type course. It goes into the theory behind econometric econometrics. Excuse me as well as programming data in computer programming, which is the second course. It is an introduction to programming in R and that's really designed for individuals who have little or no coding experience.

In the programming software are we had some students who had known other computer programs, but not our and the 3rd course. You're taking is writing in Polisy. Once you spend so much time studying the statistics in the data in the methodology behind it. How do you actually communicate that to make effective change in the world and not writing Impala see courses to help give you that tool to present data and present information.

In a way that can lead to some change.

And so, based on this quick overview. You see these 3 courses. You can kind of get a sense that this will be an intense program and I imagine our alumni will speak to that intensity later on, but what I want to stress here is you are not required to have any background in Econometrics statistics or anything quantitative for that matter. This program is going to be an entry way for you to step into that field of quantitative analysis. It will push you it will challenge you certainly.

But you are not to have any prerequisites in your coursework.

And that's a snapshot of what the curriculum looks like.

But I think as our students or excuse me now alumni will say was one of the academic highlights is the faculty LED capstone project.

And during this four week program you're spending the first three weeks in those courses. I previously mentioned the quantitative analysis in the programming and are in your last full week that you're working on this capstone project with faculty and some of the past projects that we had included conflict and insurgent learning and that was alongside the faculty director Austin right. We also had projects on cyberattacks hate crimes in the United States.

Refugee camps and how those have changed so various different types of capstone projects will research topics and one of the things that you can do when you're applying to this program is indicating to us.

Which type of topics you are interested in because I'm currently having conversations with Austin right about what capstone projects we will have for next summer so one of the benefits of applying early is being able to help influence? What topics are going to be covered. I'll let them let them the alumni chat a little bit more about that later on.

But we're not all just academics here at University of Chicago. This program has a section that is all for your career exploration and we have a number of different initiatives or activities that help filled your career exploration. We have a policy inaction lunch series where we have academic researchers professionals practitioning in the public or private sector. We have a different number of speakers from different institutions.

Nonprofit public in the areas of NRG education environment and so on, and so forth to give you a sampling of what it would be like to work in the field. Apolosi similar to them and those are not just lectures. They're going to be more transformed for summer of 2020 to be workshop style, so you as a student in the program can really kind of see what would this path look like for me? How can I get there?

And that goes hand in hand with the career exploration workshops. We have some individuals that work at a Research Center at the University as well as a career coach here at the Harris poll public policy, who will give you some general tools in tips on how to tell your own individual story. How to get your resume in tip Top shape and practicing some of those networking skills and within those workshops, but then later on when the program hosts and networking opportunities with you Chicago community.

That will be sometimes in a small group setting in the image that you see here that was just one example of a small group networking opportunity where it's a group of 5 to 10 students in the program and one or 2 alumni current students. Researchers involved with the University. We're also going to have some larger receptions where there are multiple community members for the whole group can mingle around in the open space to practice those networking skills.

One of the key reasons why individuals choose this whole week program as an exploration from Graduate School and determining if the field of data science or public policy is something they want to pursue and if they want to pursue that add an institution like the University of Chicago. So we will host a graduate admissions panel so you can ask.

Some of those questions of what do you look for in a candidate? What are some of their clear outcomes? How much flexibility do I have in the curriculum, though, so great time to ask those questions from different departments and divisions at the University.

The next part I think is a highlight for me as a staff member to see the students really engage with one another that we have great academics career exploration. They also have a lot of fun.

Within this program, you are living in a dorm at the University of Chicago. You are put into a cohort of your fellow students in as part of that cohort you going adventures. You take group photos as you see on your screen this year. We had a photo challenge for each week. Each cohort list to submit a photo of their group. Exploring the city of Chicago, studying finding something funny in the campus dining Hall and some of the images, you see here are some of our winners.

It was a particular fan favorite to take photos in front of our academic building that we have here.

And we have a whole support system in place from the staff that we have here on hand. We have graduate resident assistance that live in the dorm with you as well as graduate teaching assistants and that's something that is offered every week nights during the program and something that I was surprised to hear so much.

Enjoyment from you know, there still academic challenges, which I'll let the alumni speak too. But just the fact that resources available. I want to make sure that you all know if you choose to join this four week program. You're going to be very supported from different angles as well.

So, in a nutshell.

This four week program keeps you busy it challenges you academically. It grows you professionally and hopefully you have a lot of fun in building friendships along with it.

And so we can talk a little bit more about the actual missions process or more details. Later on after you've had an opportunity to chat with the alumni or by emailing me or joining our web and R on December 4th in the meantime, I'm going to switch us over to our video recordings from our alumni. We have 3 recording alumni. So you'll first hear from Cecilius. I then you'll hear from Quincy and then Jack.

Hey, I'm just doing OK under graduating is even from Shanghai. I made it in interactive media arts and data science and I just joined the best program during the Passover. The year of 2019. So why did I join DPS choose DPS because I've always been interested in data analytics and wondered what it would be like to apply his skills in for me problems in real life and I believe that if wearing problems related to data policy it would be an interesting.

Experience for me.

Uh what would I did how would I describe academic or when was the peace take away from the academics. I will say that my biggest takeaway would be always be cautious and careful when joining conclusion because the correlation that we rely on which seems persuasive may highly likely be nothing but at least it's one of the highlights of my student experience.

I will say that night on the boat cruise will be one of the best night that I enjoy kids. It's just like the ones online with my suit. A lot of enjoyable moments with friends like dancing singing and just enjoy the beautiful skyline an to city view.

What is the favorite woman favorite memory of this video I really love the summertime in Chicago because everything is so beautiful and I enjoy seeing how strange and interesting the shape of classes every day. An I remember there was 1 morning, said morning that I cycled with a couple of other students always comes camp itself. You struggle to downtown along the Bank of Lake MI.

And it was so nice, the weather was nice and the city bill was one of the last considering Diaz.

I would say that it would definitely one of the most meaningful somewhere that he was banned. If you joined the SS but there was a lot of science, academic learning a lot of other people like a wonderful invention team processors and your fellow students so it would be nice to see see opportunity to make meaningful connections and networking with people that you're interacting with.

Oh, what are you doing now and how did it has impact that so I'm currently studying away in New York for my junior year and I just recently decided to double major in data science because he experience so deviations.

How many milliliters had in data field there's a lot more interesting aspects that I could explore an?

I would say if I get to learn more about it, so I said thank you.

I this is hungry and you can call me Princess.

I'm from food in University in Shanghai and I majored in financial management resign shows this program is that I want to learn some courses that focus on commutative analysis. An R Programming. I have to say that this program is far beyond my expectations. I learned courses like commutative analysis in public policy, and the use of our programming.

And to use that in the real life, an academic life. We also have been have a capstone project cooperated with cat with professor Austin.

I remember that in the first day of this program. I was not allowed to enter the Library of U Chicago because we were just summer school students, but when I told this to showing she was very willing to help us and in the just in the second day, we were allowed to go there.

You know that studying library will make you feel that you are just a normal student in this University you're very involved in this program.

I'm saying that if you are interested in this program is do not hesitate to apply for this program.

You will like this program that's what I want to tell you and if you have any problems and contact me. Thank you.

Hi it is my great honor. It's become the DPSS program faster than now recording myself to answer some questions first introduce myself, my name is Chloe Chan, a council committee Jack at currently as earlier student University in China and my major is English with a double major in management. And Unfortunately, cutting Rd in this program this summer to the 19th.

Second, why did you choose DPSS?

Definitely TPSS is a program that is that will provide students with solid quantitative skills and programming and equal metrics to analyze some of the social Sciences and Econometrics Phenomenons. So I think these are very definitely very practical schemes for us to use in any kind of area including social Sciences or even some other areas that are very interested in. They're very practical skills that we should we should we should never.

And I think Harris provide a very good platform for us to learn that is Stevie SS program.

Search how would you describe the academics and waters biggest take away from that dynamics?

I think it's that damn except that way nice and kind. They are eager to answer his questions and there have a good very, very attractive teaching style and they can clarify most of things very clearly.

And I think the biggest takeaway from that damn excelsa.

The way to see a problem, mostly from the cognitive Van Gogh instead of Qualitative Agora.

For it was one of the highlights are still in the experience I think it is experience to become a monitor class since you know University we are separate individuals to.

Pursue our own goals, but across my Teresa Graves to come to class. The Department of students. It is a challenge for me, but it also means a lot of responsibilities. So I think I enjoy it and I think it is a good experience for me to develop myself more mature and more responsible person.

This one is the most cherished memory of the city of Chicago. I think the server memory must be the pro, Cruz that's order for DPS students and.

And uh.

And R I've done an academics are of us got out of boats to enjoy the sun sets and have very good view of the whole city of Chicago and enjoy the fresh air and relax ourselves from the caveat, Danny attended pressures.

6. What advice would you give to students considering DPSS definitely take care sis? Is very good program that will provide you with solid skills and a very good exposure to public policy service and some related social Sciences area and I think it would definitely it will not disappoint. You any it will definitely impress your lot. You should get prepared for the program to be renewing your motivation statement.

And to present the past few to all of their business and I think you can get it.

Last letter doing now and how did the PSS impact that?

Uh I'm now very actively I possibly preparing for my master application, custom also doing a lot of doing some internships and struggle to have a better academic records and I think the SS stuff only made me more confident in English speaking environment and made me confident enough to study in the relatively.

Challenging class classes and learning environment.

Wonderful so that is the end of the recorded weapon recording from alumni. You just heard from Sicilia Quincy and Jack there at the end, so I hope that that was pretty helpful for you all to hear from those students who live on the other side of the world compared to Chicago, but now we're going to be joined by some of our alumni live so I will first ask them.

To introduce themselves, they will let us know their name. Their current academic institution or employer and some other interesting facts that they would care like to share and then we can go around and start diving into some questions so while the alumni are introducing themselves perspective. Students on the web and R. Please go ahead and use that chat box feature to start submitting your questions that you would like to hear from our alumni.

Betty would you like to begin and introduce yourself?

Yeah, sure hi everyone, so my name is Betty Ann. I'm currently a in my last year of my undergraduate degree pursuing business an English literature. I'm actually from Canada and have always been interested in looking more app business and government relationships and that's why I've been really interested in perhaps getting a graduate degree in public policy. I had a great summer experience hello love to depart into world what I learned later.

Great thank you, buddy have your your on the call yes.

Maybe we'll come back to him. Kevin are you able to introduce yourself.

Hi.

Can you hear Maine? Yes. Yes, I can hear you OK? Well hi everybody my name is Javier Kota? I'm from Mexico. I'm currently a student at it, Anne Anne. I'm from a double major program in Economics and political science. I was also part of DPS as at the summarization of 2018 an it came really as a great surprise to know the approach of the U Chicago and it's something like.

I would like to pursue in the future so for those who may not know at Time is located in Mexico.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Who's next would like to introduce themselves?

Hi guys, I'm names Kevin Silverman. I'm currently a senior at Williams College in Massachusetts and I study intellectual history and it's yeah, my last message. I'm graduating in a couple of weeks. I ended up at the summer. Scholars program at Harris because I was really interested in having a bigger data tool kit and I heard really good things about the hair at school. So it just seems like a really natural fit, especially pivoting from sort of like a liberal arts background.

Oh man, yeah, I talked to Andy a couple times and then it just kind of worked out really nicely. I'm originally from Spain and I grew up in Miami. So you know it'll show tonight international feel to it.

Yes.

Do any of the alumni wanna speak further on why they chose this program or it seems like you've touched upon that already. In your intro any other comments. You want to make to why you chose the program.

I would like to share some.

Well, I chose to apply to DPSS as I was looking for a way to take the next step in my crib life, but also I was looking for an exploration of Graduate School. I was interested in looking into an opportunity and best myself in Italian environment and I wanted to have a deeper understanding analytics and how could I translate all of these statistics.

Concepts into a real life, I did not only find this, but also came back from the program with great quite friendships and great idea of what I want to do in the future, and why would I what I would like to pursue for Graduate School.

And so for me personally, I when I was reading into the program. I realized there was an in classroom component, but also more of a hands-on component to apply the are for example, the our skills. The coding skills as well as what you've learned in class. Anna capstone and I thought that area and that exercise was really helpful in terms of actually understanding how to take someone for learning and run with it as well.

Ask unproduced something like a policy memo being able to work faculty more closely with something that I was really interested at all, and you really get a I would say hi touch experience with faculty members and their happy to chat about the research so if you have a policy area that you want to look more into I'm sure that you know they'll have great discussions with you as well as connect you to different people that fits your interest and I think that was a component that I really enjoyed in the program.

Yeah, I I also agree with the with what hobby was saying about grad school but another aspect is that it's it's 4 weeks. It's really intensive so it really gives you an opportunity to do other things during the summer and it's just a really convenient time and it was a really nice self contained program.

Yeah, yeah, you know it's it's 4 weeks intensive but you also have a lot of Freedom address for the summer.

So with the academics being maybe knew to some of you who don't have a quantitative background or as Kevin you had mentioned being from a liberal arts background? How was that learning curve and jumping into this quantitative focus and what resources did both the University provide or that you found on your own with maybe with your peers or relying on family back home. How did you navigate that academic intensity if will use that word?

OK.

Sure, I'll just jump in so I had gone in having taken like one introductory stats course. So I didn't really have much of a background and some of my peers didn't have a background at all but a social thing is, is that the way that the quantitative process buildings that we were going through the code and going through sort of the mechanics of it and then nice chunk of time in the afternoon that if you really dedicated yourself, you wouldn't have to work.

That much on your own so you know it's kind of really built to help you and went in the GA for that course are pins. He was too so great, he's a PhD student in kind of like urban studies and sociology of some sort and they really like these are people that really care about your development and they're also kind of the other really close should I think behavior. Most students so it's really, really helpful.

And then if we want to step may be away from the academics. If we want to talk about the student life experience or even the city of Chicago. Alums had you been to the city before what was it like navigating this large, the 3rd largest in the US and maybe some fun memories that you had working with your peers socially or just exploring the city.

And so I can go first it was definitely my first time so I'm from Canada from Toronto and so except for my first time in Chicago, it was a great experience because I feel like you get to experience 2 very different environments. Where is the campus is really beautiful there is a lot of great buildings great study spots great hang out spots with your friends and there's quite a lot of history in different buildings as well. So it's definitely a fun to explore in terms of the city.

You definitely have time during the weekend to explore the city. The locals give you really good recommendations, and also you always have the culprit to go out with you so some people took out 12 Art Gallery's when shopping downtown. A lot of them also went to theater as well to watch Hamilton, which is great to be in such a vibrant city, especially in the summer. I think one of my favorite memories is definitely biking on the lakefront all the way into the city and you could do that all the way.

From campus into the city, which is a fantastic experience as fall.

I would also like to say it's fantastic city and as Berry said it's really a vibrant city and if you have enough time during the weekend you could visit great museums art galleries and also get to know other areas of the city I know that most people are attracted to the downtown area but I say you Chicago student during the summer you could also take a great look of what's the daily life around.

Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's really vibrant. It's really nice. and I think uhm. You also get kind of a really nice tool for sort of like college life is like in the USA and I want to go over to really small school on this being a larger school is kind of really interesting and really.

Fun and yeah, I highly recommend it. I mean, sure how goes one of the Great American cities and I was so happy to be able to spend some time and you're like with you know 20 people or I mean, I don't remember how large the class was actually that all want to be your friends.

And Unfortunately the alumni don't see the screen that you all get to see but you can see, there. There's a lot of pictures of the students out enjoying the city as Javier mentioned there are a number of neighborhoods in the city. There are 77 to be exact and one of the photos you see, there is a group of the students. Exploring the neighborhood of tilts and that there was a big festival going on with a bunch of food trucks and games. So there's definitely opportunity for them to explore in that regard, so it's great to hear from the alumni speak about that.

And while you all are still submitting your questions through the chat box our next question for the alumni is what are you doing? Now, or if you're still in your undergraduate program thinking of grad school thinking of a gap year. You know what are some of your ideas of you had a job right out of undergrad? What would be the ideal job?

Oh my God, OK, so for me, I will be working in public sector consulting and so emerges. A lot of interest. I talked about before in terms of business and government relationships. I think one thing that GPS says really help me with is getting more of the academic experience in terms of policy and so this year in my last year. I ended up joining a University.

I think that does political risk analysis and I think without having that summer experience I won't. I wouldn't have been able to have the portfolio to be a candidate for that opportunity so overall. I think having that quantitative experience and more of an academic policy or government experience really allowed me to look for other opportunities away from my ucommerce an English degree.

Yeah, so I eat currently have a job in venture capital, but I'm also looking for a fellowship called kinda like metric America out of social impact. Tech work and I think that this program really kind of helped me kind of.

Hum one with the quantitative tools, but to sort of have a framework for getting the world. They kind of engages public policy. At that more and particularly the metric America published that I'm looking at really built nicely because it's all about how you can work in the private sector and so you know have things like public policy in mind, and I think that's something that Austin kind of really got through in the program that was really nice that you know, see and public and work for the public good isn't only done by government officials, but it's a variety of factors working together.

Well, I'm just coming back from the PSS. I started an internship at the 2nd largest bank in Mexico. I'm currently part of the analytics team, which runs experiments to find Castle. Faccin evaluate some strategies run by the bank or is this is like a private sector. I also get to apply most of the statistical tools in our programming, but I learned during the summer and as Kevin mentioned I was.

Also mode by the faculty members an I think I would like to try to move in the future towards research and moving into the private sector to get some more engagement with policy making.

Wow, I personally since I've met you 3 alumni this summer. I'm Ruth. That's really awesome to hear that all of you are just doing some really great things that are in your trajectory where you want to be and just to hear how DPSS played a small role in contributing to that trajectory so it's really great to hear.

Our last question that we have for our alumni today is what it advice would you give to the perspective students on our webinar today? Who are considering applying to this program or whatever notes or comments do you want to make it about this program?

Well, I would recommend to anyone who's thinking about applying to take some time and look through what program can offer in terms of the academics and also what you can do during that summer within the city and the rest of your peers definitely take some time to apply an?

And that's it that's all you have to make.

Yeah, I mean that's just good advice from from hobby and I mean, I think just know that that you don't need a particular background to do this program to get the most out of it like some of my peers were just like going into law school and you know, I'm you know, I'm a senior in college. Some people were freshmen and so just like.

If you know if you just vaguely interest you uhm. I just just go for it to do your research, obviously, but it's it's very it's embracing and open program, which is kind of hard to find and I'd really just recommend just applying and doing what he said, but just keep that in mind.

Yeah, I definitely agree with Kevin I think you can call from various different backgrounds and I think one of the most valuable things about this program is not only do you get to speak with pures from very diverse backgrounds and for me that was very refreshing and also a great learning experience to hear what kind of disciplines. They come from, but also the conversations with your TAS are the PhD students. The faculty as well as professors the launchers themselves.

Because coming in you might have a big interest in public policy will want to learn more about this field and I think it's.

We are able to see what people are actually doing in this field and coming out with more of a bad idea of what? What is it that you potentially want in the field of public policy as well.

For Betty Javier Kevin. Thank you so much for answering our questions today and making ourselves available to answer these questions and provide your great insight experience and recommendations for perspective students.

And perspective student so I hope that this webinar. Today it was helpful for you. I hope you learn some good things. My recommended next steps for you would be to one start your application. If you haven't done so already our first deadline is coming up. It's less than a month in a way it is December, 13th so anywhere, you get on our website. You'll see where to start that application then if you have any questions at all, Please send me an email with the address is right on your screen.