I started a data science community for students who wanted to learn the field more deeply than our interdisciplinary major allowed. I worked with professors on a focused plan, then handled university approval, recruited members, and built the team that ran it. Even forming a club took layers of paperwork. No category existed for us. After months of documents, negotiations, and interviews in Japanese and English, the university created a new category for educational activities and made us its first member.
Students learned at different speeds, so I built a level-based path — SQL, Python, statistics, introductory machine learning — so someone could study, take a test, and move on when ready. More than seventy students completed it. Some later joined research teams. Others used the skills for internships.
Leading that club with members from many countries taught me that people approach the same goal in very different ways. They balance speed and perfection differently. They make decisions differently. Now, when I am leading, I take time to understand each person’s working norms, then set expectations.
People from different cultures approach the same goal in very different ways.
— Mayesha Maliha Proma