Real World Data Project

Hello Data science friends,

I wanted to see if anyone in the DS community had luck with volunteering your time and expertise with real world data. In college I did data analytics for a large hospital as part of a program/internship with the school. It was really fun but at the time I didn’t have the data science skills I do now. I want to contribute to a hospital or research in my own time.

For context, I am working on my masters part time and currently work a bullshit office job that initially hired me as a technical resource but now has me doing non technical work. I’m not happy honestly and really miss technical work. The job does have work life balance so I want to put my efforts to building projects, interview prep, and contributing my skills via volunteer work. Do you think it would be crazy if I went to a hospital or soup kitchen and ask for data to analyze and draw insights from? When I say this out loud, I feel like a freak but maybes thats just what working a soulless corporate job does to a person. I’m not sure if there’s some kind of streamlined way to volunteer my time with my skills? Anyways look forward to hearing back.