One unique aspect of the curriculum for the Master’s of Analytics program at the Institute for Advanced Analytics is the emphasis on soft skills, like communication, teamwork, and receiving feedback. For one week between the summer and fall semesters, MSA students learn what makes a strong communicator through individual and team presentations led by Dr. Sarah Egan Warren.
Throughout the week, students present three times, twice individually and once alongside their communication week team. These presentations, partnered with classes on responsible storytelling strategies, data ethics, and effective presentation techniques, equip students with practical skills and knowledge to enhance their communication skills at the IAA and in future careers.
As someone with few presentation experiences coming into this program, I understood the importance of this week and the impact it would have on my communication skills. It was a time I could experiment with new ways to prepare myself for presentations and branch out from previous routines. For me, this included implementing VR Present into my presentation preparation. At the IAA, students can use VR headsets to simulate what we see and feel when presenting to a large audience.
Another interesting part about communication week is learning to give and receive feedback from faculty and peers. Directly following our presentations, we hear about what we did well and what we can improve on. Additionally, after individual presentations, students can give feedback. After practicing giving feedback, I became more self-aware about the aspects of my own presentations that I can improve on, whether it’s filler words, transitions, or eye contact.
The week culminates with team presentations on ethical case studies. We are given a tight deadline, which challenges us to be as efficient as possible while developing presentations that address real-world ethical dilemmas faced by data scientists. This exercise not only sharpens our presentation skills but also starts important conversations about what it means to be ethical in our field.
After communication week, students receive personalized feedback on their presentations through a dashboard. There, we can see presentations broken down into aspects like speaking tone, facial expressions, and many more criteria. We can see areas we excel in, as well as areas that could be improved. The dashboard is updated after each presentation, letting us see how our presentation skills improve throughout the course of the program.
With each presentation, I look back to communication week to find ways that I can improve not just my technical delivery, but my overall communication as a data scientist.
Columnist: Lainey English