Individual blog post 2

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I managed most of the data science aspects of this phase such as pulling the data from the API’s, using pandas to clean them, and investigating possible EDA’s to exemplify the main aspects of the datasets and visualize the potential answers to the major questions which inspired this project. I used pandas to download the json files and visualize them as dataframes from their 4 unique url’s. I then cleaned the data such as removing rows with empty information. Using these cleaned data, I investigated possible ideas to manipulate them for our project using tools such as .corr() to find values of correlation between different variables.

Using those EDA’s, I designed plots that I thought would be useful for interpreting solutions to our questions surrounding immigration and asylum seeking using the datasets and summary statistics, which can be found in the team post for phase 2. Finally, I graphed a regression model of the asylum applications sent to the United States globally per year, which will be used to make predictions about future asylum applications.

Separtely to this, my time in Belgium has been nothing short of incredible. I have absolutely loved every minute of it. As a neuroscience major, I find it fascinating and am very aware of the rapid growth of mycomputer/data science skills in the recent weeks. This is the first time I have been thrust into such a rigorous environment where so much time is spent on the same subject. This method of learning has clearly been more efficient, rewarding, and valuable for my studies. I’m certainly glad to have had the opportunity to learn this about myself before I begin studying for the MCAT this coming fall.

This week we had many outings, my favorite of which was when we went to Brussels where we had the opportunity to visit microsoft Europe (followed by an interesting train ride home with the professors and a few of my classmates). Interacting with and learning from somebody whose background was in philosophy was a unique experience that changed my views on how certain my future is. Being able to have such an in depth conversation with such a succesful former philosophy undergraduate who now works in policy at such a large corporation undoubtedly expanding my idea of what my future may look like. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed the entirety of this trip, and continue to learn more about Belgium, data science, international politics, and myself on a daily basis all while being surrounded by amazing people.