Student Consultant Program in Data Science, Statistics, and Visualization
Student Data Science Consultants are integral to the Data Science, Statistics, and Visualization team's ability to support Northwestern researchers in learning and applying data and computational skills to their research.
Applications open in March each year for student consultant positions the following academic year.
What Do Student Consultants Do?
Help Others
Student consultants conduct one-on-one consultations with other students, postdocs, and staff. Consultants help researchers by:
- Troubleshooting or improving code and visualizations
- Selecting appropriate technical, logical, and statistical solutions
- Guiding researchers through computational and statistical steps to complete their research projects
Work on Research Projects
Students also collaborate on longer research projects led by faculty. These projects involve writing code to create a research product, conducting statistical analyses, and producing unique data visualizations. Some projects lead to co-authorship.
Data Science, Statistics, and Visualization staff mentor students on these projects, clearly defining the project scope and work expectations with the faculty member before the student begins, helping the student communicate throughout the project, and providing technical support as needed. See our portfolio of past projects for examples.
Teach or Write
Interested students can also learn how to communicate their skills effectively to others by creating tutorials, teaching workshops, and creating training videos.
"Being a Student Consultant has exposed me to more fields of research and methods than I ever thought possible. This experience has greatly expanded my interests and allowed me to explore countless new ideas.”
Who Should Apply?
- Current, full-time, Northwestern students
- Graduate or undergraduate students
- Any department, school, or major
- Previous programming experience in R or Python, or significant statistical coursework
- Interest in developing new technical skills in data science and visualization
Applicants should have programming skills in R or Python and familiarity with at least one additional programming language, statistical program, or specialty skill, such as Stata, MATLAB, Java, Javascript, SQL, bash, machine learning, image classification, text analysis, webscraping, or other data skills. Alternatively, students should have completed significant statistical coursework in statistics and have skills in at least one programming language or software program for statistical analysis.
Once in the program, student consultants have many opportunities to learn new languages and build new technical skills through consultations and project work.
Applicants should be comfortable researching solutions to technical or statistical problems and explaining technical concepts to people with various backgrounds. Student consultants bring patience, respect, and professionalism to all aspects of their role. Before entering the program, many of our students are known in their department as the person to go to for help troubleshooting code or giving statistical advice; if you enjoy this type of informal teaching and problem solving, that's a good sign that you might also enjoy a position as a Student Consultant in Data Science, Statistics, or Visualization.
What Are the Benefits of the Program?
Technical Skills
Learning is part of the job. Student consultants are encouraged to take on projects and consults requiring them to research and practice new skills. Staff and other student consultants are available to support these learning efforts.
Professional Skills
Students are trained and mentored as consultants; they learn career skills that are difficult to practice in their everyday student roles. These include:
- Communicating data and methods to people with varying skill levels
- Discussing and thinking through the ethics of data collection and use
- Working with data and analyses outside of their academic field
- Setting and negotiating clear work expectations
- Networking with data science and IT professionals
- Working in a professional workplace outside of the hierarchies of traditional academia
Community
Student consultants join a community of students with similar interests who support and learn from each other through frequent discussions of technical and professional topics.
Career Preparation
Research Computing and Data Services staff are available to provide student consultants with career advice, detailed feedback on both industry and academic job application materials, and interview practice.
Former Student Data Science Consultants have gone on to work at Microsoft, NVIDIA, GAINS, Noom, Boston Consulting Group, Precision Biosciences, the Chicago Police Department, and the University of Pennsylvania, and taken academic or research postings at the University of Notre Dame, AstraZeneca, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dartmouth College, and Georgetown University.
"Not only is data science consulting incredibly rewarding, but it also made me a better, faster, more versatile coder.”
Applications
We accept applications in March for both Summer and Fall Quarter start dates. We hire undergraduate and graduate students as hourly employees and offer fully-funded Graduate Assistantships to several PhD students each year. We occasionally hire at other times of the year. If you have questions about the student program, please email Colby Witherup Wood, Manager of Data Science Services.
We are currently accepting applications for the 2024-25 academic year. We have limited openings for positions starting Spring and Summer 2024. The deadline to apply to all positions is March 26, 2024. Apply Now.