JGI’s Widening Participation Summer Internship Experience: Emily Anderton & Senyi Luo
We completed a six-week internship working with Dr Hen Wilkinson and the JGI team as part of the University of Bristol’s Widening Participation Research Summer Internship scheme. Our internship project was in the data science field and centered around the topic of PeaceTech.
Our experience:
Throughout the internship, I gained technical skills in using Tableau software and Python to create data visualisations, and I further developed my critical thinking skills when producing a scoping review of PeaceTech-related literature and researching stop and search statistics.
I felt it was valuable experience to be included in meetings with the wider JGI team, and the friendly nature of the team helped me feel confident when presenting updates on our project. It was also fascinating to learn of the other JGI data science projects currently underway during these meetings, especially since I am interested in pursuing a career in this field.
Although the internship was not akin to my undergraduate degree course field (Accounting and Management), it helped me to develop universal academic skills, including writing literature reviews and reports, which will prove useful as I enter the third year of my degree programme. The internship also enabled me to gain insight into the way research is conducted at the University of Bristol, which will be of great use to me when considering postgraduate study.
Overall, I felt that the internship was well structured, and the daily check-ins helped to keep everyone on the right track, which enabled me to learn so much in only six weeks. The JGI team were a pleasure to work with and I would definitely recommend an internship with them.
– Emily Anderton
During the internship at the JGI, I got a deeper understanding of what PeaceTech is and got to know more about data science. I learned how to collect data, clean data, and visualize it in the end. Alongside with this, I learned about literature review which I have not done before, and it is helpful to my future study. It is such a fascinating experience into the world of research at the university. You can get an excellent insight about how research is conducted and the University works.
Also, the real-world project gives you a valuable hands-on experience about learning new things, solving the problem, and most importantly work as a team. The JGI team is also very friendly and welcoming which as well they give us a lot of support and the atmosphere here is so good. The Widening Participation program is well-organized and there is a meet-up every week so that you can share your experience about your project with other interns from different departments as well which can give you more point of views.
– Senyi Luo
We would like to thank the JGI and the University of Bristol for this incredible opportunity.