Career Path Of An Integration Developer At Salad And Go
T.J., a non-traditional student who worked 30 hours a week while pursuing an information science and technology degree, gained valuable real-world experience through a data science internship at Cybers, an agricultural research company. This internship, "giv[ing] real world programming experience," proved invaluable, differentiating their skillset from others by providing hands-on experience with data and programming impacting a company's bottom line.
Non-traditional Career Path, Coding and Data Science Skills, Real-world Internship Experience, Balancing Work and School, Data Analysis in Agriculture
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
T.J. Lippincott
Integration Developer
Salad and Go
University of Arizona, 2020
N/A
Business Management & Admin
Food, Beverages & Alcohol, Technology
Data and Analytics
Pell Grant Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Transfer Student
Video Highlights
1. T.J.'s non-traditional path to a career in tech, starting college at 24 while working 30 hours a week, showcases the value of life skills and experience.
2. His data science internship at Cybers, an agricultural research company, provided real-world programming experience and highlighted the application of skills in a professional setting.
3. The internship's focus on data handling, front-end web development, and impacting a company's bottom line offers practical insights for students interested in similar career paths.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Do you have any internships or jobs you had before your current role?
As a non-traditional student, I didn't go to college until I was 24. Being on campus was definitely an interesting culture shock. My major was in Information Science and Technology with a minor in Business.
During this time, I was working and going to school, working almost 30 hours a week. This definitely prepared me with some life skills coming out of college and into my career, skills that others might not have. I think it certainly propelled me to get a couple of promotions post-college.
In college, I took a lot of coding classes. Our program focused on Python, and I also did some R programming and shell scripting. My internship in my senior year was with a company called Cybers, affiliated with the U of A.
Cybers is an agricultural research company. They do genome sequencing for plants and a lot of plant study. I was a data science intern there, moving data in and out of systems. I also developed a front-end webpage for students to learn about their findings.
This significantly helped my career because it gave me real-world programming experience. While college programming assignments are based on prompts that may not perfectly replicate real-world experiences or problems, this internship allowed me to get my hands dirty. I was able to dive into data and programming that actually had financial returns and impacted the bottom line.