by By Cami Hernandez Merhar, Assistant Director, Mentoring Texas A&M Career Center
Now more than ever data is extremely important. We need it to make informed decisions about how we navigate this new COVID 19 world not only personally but professionally.
Although the circumstances we currently find ourselves in are dire, I find a little hope in what we’ve been able to accomplish through data collection and analysis.
One of my favorite examples is the US Health Weather Map, made public by the digital thermometer maker, Kinsa. Access to data they collect from their digital thermometers and the accompanying app allows us to see “Atypical Illness [which] refers to an unusual incidence of elevated flu-like illness levels” that can be caused by not only by COVID 19, but other factors such as “Increased healthcare seeking behavior in light of the COVID-19 pandemic” and “Seasonally abnormal cold/flu viruses circulating in particular communities.”
As of March they have switched their way of collecting data to “reflect the cumulative amount of atypical illnesses we’ve observed since March 1 — previously this map reflected only new atypical illness, updated daily. As widespread social distancing measures take effect, feverish illness levels are dropping, and we feel this way of looking at the data gives a more accurate and comprehensive view of what’s happening.”
This give me great hope that the small acts we do like social distancing and improving our hygiene by increasing the frequency of hand washing is working to slow the spread of this illness. We must continue to physically distant ourselves in order to spare as many lives as we can.
But let’s switch gears to student career readiness.
In my small area of data and insight I know there has been a small surge of Texas A&M’s new automated resume feedback tool, Vmock. This data is still preliminary as we still have cross reference this to past data, but my hypothesis is as we move into a virtual space, students will naturally seek guidance with online tools in comparison to manual ones like phone calls. 
We want to hear from you. How have you transitioned onto digital places and how are you quantifying the impact you’re having with your students during this new time? What brings you hope and happiness at times like this? Email us at mchmerhar@tamu.edu and let us know!
