# Should I Go To Insight Data Science?

*August 21, 2018* | #career-advice, #opinions

**Update:** Insight has [_significantly changed its funding model_][funding].
I have added a note to the section [Insight is _Free_, but
**EXPENSIVE**][free].

[funding]: https://insightfellows.com/financing
[free]: #insight-is-free-but-expensive

![The Stanford Dish, a large radio telescope, in the early morning
    light. The sky is purple and blue, and the dish is a white metal-lattice
    structure glowing softly pink in the light. At the top of the dish is a
    red light.](/files/insight//stanford_dish_in_the_early_morning_hours_by_brianhama_cc_by_sa_4.jpg)

Following [Neha's][neha] [advice][advice] about writing a blog post for any
email that you've written over and over, I thought I'd answer a question I get
often: "I'm trying to get a job in data science; should I attend
[Insight][insight]?"

[neha]: https://twitter.com/nerdneha
[advice]: https://twitter.com/math_rachel/status/822958139343446016
[insight]: https://www.insightdatascience.com/

I'm qualified to answer this question because during the summer of 2015 I was
an Insight Fellow in the data science track (DS-SV-2015B). That, of course, is
also my bias: I found my current and previous job through Insight, made a
bunch of friends, and am happy with the experience in general. I am also a
technical adviser, meaning I mentor Fellows weekly in exchange for a small bit
of equity in the company.[^disclaimer]

[^disclaimer]: For the record, they also buy me dinner when I come in to mentor after work.

## What is Insight?

Insight is a program to help people find jobs in data science related fields.
Their initial program was the [data science][insight] track---which I will
discuss in the remainder of this post---but they have expanded to cover
various other data-related fields as well. The data science program is offered
in multiple cities: Boston, New York, Seattle, Toronto, and the Bay Area.
There is also a remote session that is entirely online. They accept only PhDs,
mostly from technical fields but also a few other technically minded folk with
liberal arts PhDs. Each program runs for about three months and at the end you
will (ideally) have a job.

## What Would I Do There?

Insight isn't like graduate school. While there are a few talks covering a
variety of useful topics---SQL, startups and equity, tech interviews,
etc.---the majority of the learning is project based. You pick a project and
then spend a few weeks (feverishly) working on it, learning by doing and by
talking to the people around you. If you are interested in seeing what one of
these projects looks like, I wrote about mine in detail:
[WhereTo.Photo][my_project].

[my_project]: /blog/whereto-photo/

The program is structured as follows:

- 4 weeks of building a data project

- 3 weeks of demoing the project at various companies

- 3+ weeks of interviewing with companies you demoed at

During the first few weeks, companies come by to present what they do and why
they need data scientists. After all the companies have presented you put
together a list of the companies that you are interested in. You will get to
demo at **some**, **but not all**, of them, because the number of people who
can demo at any particular company is limited.

Over the next few weeks you show off your project at some of the companies
that you selected (eight per Fellow during my session) in what Insight calls a
demo. The demo consists of a short presentation about the project you built, a
live demonstration of it, and a few minutes for questions. [My demo slides are
here][demo] if you want to see what that looks like.

[demo]: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BwKT9-hDt0jHaCS6qjVlPptYKe5CkCwQUpqdT4GI8hM/edit?usp=sharing

Some of the companies you demo at will want to take the next step and
interview you. When not demoing, you practice for those interviews and brush
up on all the topics you are unsure of with the help of the other Fellows and
mentors.

Throughout the program you receive guidance from a range of people:

- _Insight staff_, who are often outstanding Fellows from previous sessions
  hired to lead the program.

- _Industry mentors_, who have worked in data science for some time, such as
  myself.

- _Previous Fellows_ who come back to help teach the next generation, also
  such as myself.

- _The other Fellows_ who make up your session.

This last group **shouldn't be underestimated**: you learn a lot from your
peers as you ask each other for help with your projects. Everyone is an expert
at something, and a novice at other things.

## Why Should I Go?

![A landscape of the Stanford hills including the Stanford Dish
    shrouded in light fog. The sun is setting behind the dish making the sky
    appear bright white.](/files/insight//stanford_dish_by_jawed_cc_by_3.jpg)

### Lots of Exposure

Insight is a great way to get a quick survey of about thirty companies in the
area that are all hiring data scientists. I knew of the big name companies in
Silicon Valley (Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.) but not really any of the
medium or small companies. One of those small companies was the perfect fit
for me and I spent two great years working there; I never would have found
them without Insight to make the introduction.

### A Killer Network

Insight is also a great way to build a professional network. There are over
fifteen hundred alumni scattered all across the country. Friends from my
session now work at a wide variety of companies, including:
AdRoll,
Airbnb,
Facebook,
Google,
Instagram,
Intuit,
Kabaam!,
LinkedIn,
Netflix,
Salesforce,
SambaTV,
Silicon Valley Data Science,
Stitch Fix,
and
VEVO.

This network is incredibly valuable---it is how I found my second job---and it
would have been hard to build without Insight.

### Great Friends and Community

Finally, I've made great friends from among the people who went through
Insight with me. This might seem like a minor point, but if you're picking up
your life and moving across the country it is great to have a group you can
hang out with. I regularly go on bike rides, play board games, or just get
dinner with the people from my session.

## Sounds Great! What's the Catch?

### Insight is _Free_, but **EXPENSIVE**

**Update:** Insight has [_significantly changed its funding model_][funding]
since I wrote this article. They now require either a refundable upfront
payment, or an [income sharing agreement][isa].

[isa]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_share_agreement

~~Insight doesn't charge the Fellows anything, and they even offer a limited
number of need-based scholarships to help cover expenses.~~ Still, living
without a job for three or four months is hard. Rent in the Bay Area will set
you back around $2000 a month at least. My wife and I had a good amount of
savings, but it was just about wiped out renting for three months without a
second source of income. We did not have to fall back on our credit cards, but
I know Fellows who needed to.

Insight is also not your employer, so you will have to get health insurance
somewhere else. My graduate school insurance lasted over the summer, but this
is not the case for everyone.

### Not Everyone Finds a Job in Three Months

[Insight says that the vast majority of Fellows find a job in the
industry][faq], and this is true, but they don't promise that it will happen
within the three months. Everyone in my session who stuck with it got a job
that they loved in data science, but for a few of them it took a long time.
About a third of my class had offers within a week or two, another third took
about a month or slightly longer, and the last third dragged out over a few
months with one or two of my friends taking more than four months. I've known
Fellows in other sessions who spent six months interviewing before receiving
an offer.

[faq]: https://www.insightdatascience.com/faq

### You Need to Know How To Code

Data scientists need to know how to work with data, but they also need to know
how to code. [A good grasp of at least one language is a must][prepare], and
it would be very tough to pick up coding from scratch at Insight. If you can't
write [FizzBuzz][fizz] then you will have catching up to do. This is
especially true for machine learning positions, which have interviews that
more closely follow the "standard" developer interview pattern of writing code
on the whiteboard over and over and over again.

[prepare]: https://blog.insightdatascience.com/preparing-for-the-transition-to-data-science-e9194c90b42c
[fizz]: https://imranontech.com/2007/01/24/using-fizzbuzz-to-find-developers-who-grok-coding/

## Final Thoughts

I believe in giving someone all the information they need to make an informed
decision. That's why I wrote this post. I think Insight is worth the costs,
but I wanted to make those costs known ahead of time. In the end, I would go
through the program again. It helped my career get off to a great start by
finding the perfect first company for me. Could I have gotten a data science
job without Insight? Probably, but the experience certainly would have been
more painful, and I don't think I would be as happy with the outcome because
the network I built has really helped expand my possibilities.

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