This is Xiaoxue Fan, a junior studying Statistics at Illinois, and this was her first semester at ATLAS. She first heard of the internship program through department emails or newsletters. Xiaoxue decided to join the ATLAS Internship Program because she wanted to apply the data analysis skills she learned in the course to the real world and gain hands-on experience as well during the internship program.
Xiaoxue interns for the ATLAS Data Intern Team as a data analyst intern. In this role, she’s in charge of cleaning the career course dataset, which includes reviewing course descriptions, organizing variables, and preparing the dataset to build a more effective project. She also analyzed the patterns in career-related courses across the university and focused on questions, like how many courses truly focus on career development for students.
Throughout her internship, Xiaoxue became proficient in organizing complicated datasets logically and effectively. She was also able to systematically code qualitative information into structured categories as well as interpret the statistics in a comprehensive way. Xiaoxue strengthened her data analysis and data organization skills by preparing the dataset for further analysis and team discussions. Besides technical skills, Xiaoxue also developed her soft skills, including collaboration, communication, and time management. She grew to be more professional in the working environment through various tasks she had performed, such as participating in client meetings and delivering her own insights. The big takeaway Xiaoxue is taking from this experience is the importance of carefully interpreting data before drawing conclusions.
Looking ahead, Xiaoxue hopes to work in and pursue a career in data analytics or data science. After graduation, she plans to continue developing her technical and analytical skills and potentially pursue graduate studies in data science or analytics. When she’s not working, though, she enjoys exploring different coffee shops while studying, working on data projects, and learning new analytical techniques.