Meet Bryan Engelsen, a current student in the Weather and Climate Risk and Data Analytics Certificate Program!
Since completing his B.S. and M.S. in the Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Illinois, Bryan has been working as an air quality consultant for an environmental consulting firm.
What drew Bryan back to Illinois to pursue the graduate certificate? He shared that the opportunity to hone his data analytics skills, especially in Python, will help him optimize the code he writes in his day-to-day work.
“As I became more comfortable with the standard operating procedures for our data handling and reporting [in my job], I began to realize so much of it could be optimized with some Python programming. As I started mixing in various Python scripts for a lot one-off tasks, I approached my supervisor with developing a series of scripts to optimize some of our everyday and weekly tasks. I thought your program would be a great opportunity to refine and build my existing Python skillset!”
To continue building his skills, one certificate course Bryan completed was ATMS 517: Data Science in the Geosciences, one of the program’s cornerstone courses. In this course, students learn and apply cutting-edge data science techniques in Python to key weather and climate problems, starting from the very basics.
Bryan stated that “ATMS 517 was an awesome class that could be taken by anyone without any previous programming experience. It was well taught and easy to follow…..my expectations have only been exceeded. After taking this course, I am using the skills I learned every day in my job!“
Like many students enrolled in online programs, Bryan has a very busy schedule and juggles many responsibilities, but he found that “the pace, structure, and content of ATMS 517 were all critical for me being able to handle the workload and learn relevant material while working a full-time job…. having a consistent schedule of due dates and clear expectations made it easy.“
The Atmospheric Sciences Department is thrilled to have engaged, keen students like Bryan enrolled in their online graduate programs and that they are able to immediately apply what they learn from their coursework in their jobs!
Would you like to expand your skillset for tackling challenging, key weather and climate problems, like Bryan? It’s not too late to explore our program opportunities and apply for fall 2022 admissions!
