Hi all,

I'm a college junior who'll be starting a 6 month data science co-op with a large national retail company, and I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight on what DS looks like at a company like this. I won't name the company for sake of privacy, but I'm concerned that the job will be a lot of dashboard building, etc and not a ton of modelling, and I'm worried I'll end up spending 6 months as an excel monkey. The job description mentioned modelling and explicitly had Python and whatnot as a requirement, but i was wondering if anyone in retail DS had any advice or experiences to share as I prepare to get started.

(As a note, I do not at all view myself as above dashboard building, excel, etc. it's just not what I'm hoping to get out of the co-op, I'm looking to build my skills in modelling, ML, etc., so I promise I'm not trying to come off as pretentious or above that kind of work. I'm also very aware I wont be building giant sophisticated neural nets or anything crazy cutting edge like that).

Thank you!