Hosting My First Panel Discussion (Meetup)

I really enjoyed helping host the Launching a Data Science Career 🚀 panel discussion in collaboration with the Bethesda Data Science meetup. It was a good meetup that the team hoped would help people with navigating their careers at the entry-level, mid-level and director level. I just felt that with the current economy the way that it is, there’s so much negativity and hopelessness. There are so many people who are hurting right now due to the fact that they can’t find employment. I, along with the Bethesda Data Science team, wanted to do something about it. We wanted to let people know that there are others out there that care about them. We wanted to give people the chance to ask questions and have their questions answered with specifics. We wanted to give people practical tips that they could implement right away. We don’t know if this meetup helped people at all, but we did everything that we could to put out a meetup worthy of peoples’ time and respect. We prepared questions in advance, had the panelists prepare answers in advance, and there was a lot of communication to make sure the event was a success. There was a high RSVP number and we expected a big turnout. However, around one hour before the event, there was inclement weather in the form of a thunderstorm. The thunderstorm turned out to be not that serious, but it dampened the audience turnout. But hey, it happens! The show must go on, and it did. We ended up doing the meetup and it was a total success. Thanks to the panelists for speaking and Applied Photons for hosting.