The primary objective of this assignment is to provide students with opportunities to learn about contemporary industry issues and best practices.
The secondary objective is to provide students with opportunities to practice professional networking and interpersonal skills.
Search meetup.com for data-related events in the Washington DC area.
Attend three events over the course of the semester.
At least two events must be hosted by different meetup groups.
Use caution when choosing a meetup to attend. If you're stuck or not sure where to start, try an event offered by one of the following recommended groups:
- Code for DC
- Data Wranglers
- Washington Viz-ards
- Open Data Leaders
- MongoDB Users Group
- Data Education
- Tableau Data Nation
- Federal Big Data Working Group
- Open Analytics
- Data Community
- Social Media Analytics
Not all these groups have been previously vetted. Please edit this list based your own recommendations!
Write a short (2-3 page) summary of your experiences, to address the following questions:
- Which events did you attend, which groups hosted them, and what happened at each?
- What did you learn about contemporary data and database challenges and practices?
- For each meetup group... Have you returned to attend subsequent events hosted by this group? Would you recommend the group to a friend? Why or why not?
You may attach or embed photos to your writeup to provide further evidence of event attendance.
Submit your writeup via Blackboard.
Full credit for submitting a thoughtful response that demonstrates evidence of event attendance AND insights into contemporary business and technology issues and practices.
3/4 credit for submitting a response that demonstrates evidence of event attendance OR insights into contemporary business and technology issues and practices.
Half credit for submitting a relevant response.
Else no credit.
If the idea of attending business and technology community events frightens you or makes you uncomfortable, you have another option.
You may propose and submit a custom assignment that demonstrates the same learning objectives as the meetup assignment.
If proposing a custom assignment, please compose a brief assignment description (including evaluation criteria), and send it to the professor for approval no later than the beginning of class on 10/7.