This article was written for our sponsor, Thinkful.

Animal shelters are home to many prospective pets just waiting for their forever homes, and visiting one to pick out a new, furry friend can be an exciting time. You might prefer cats over dogs, but did you know that cats with names are more likely to find a home than those without?

Thanks to Joanne Lin’s data analysis project while at Thinkful, Raleigh’s newest coding bootcamp program, we know more about the factors that influence pet adoption — and names are at the top of the list.

“I think the fact that the names for the cats was such an important component to predicting adoptions was surprising,” Lin said. “We don’t really have the full story here, I’m just looking at the data.”

Inspired by her own rescue cat, Lin dug into the publicly available data from the Austin Animal Shelter, the largest no-kill shelter in the country. With data from nearly 80,000 animals, she dug into the variables, and used machine learning to find commonalities and see what influences adoption rates. That’s a lot of data to process, but after taking the data science course through Thinkful, Lin felt prepared to tackle a major project.

“Data science is not something I studied in college. Thinkful helped me make that career change and I am very thankful for that,” Lin said.

Lin attended one of Thinkful’s bootcamps, a learning program for those looking to change careers or add to their resume. Instead of a lecture hall, Thinkful students are around the country and congregate in digital classrooms, with flexible programs that match up to your schedule.

“I did a lot research when I was trying to decide what kind of bootcamp I wanted to do,” Lin said. “I ruled out a lot of in person, general assembly programs. I wanted to do something that was self-paced.”

It wasn’t just about building skills that attracted Lin to Thinkful. Bootcamps have become more and more popular as the demand for tech jobs grows and people look to change careers. There are many to choose from, but Thinkful offers a few tangible benefits that Lin said really made the difference.

“The biggest selling point was the mentorship,” Lin said. “Knowing who I am as a student, I knew having a mentor was something that was important to me. It not only keeps me accountable, but when I get stuck on a problem, I have someone I can bounce ideas off of. The other reason is because Thinkful has a community in [Washington] D.C. If I were going to pay money to do this, I wanted to be able to build a network, build a community that could eventually lead to job offers, which it has.”

Lin’s program manager recommended her, and after the interview process, was offered a position. But Thinkful wasn’t done helping with just the recommendation, the career services staff helped throughout the process, in this case providing strategies for negotiating salary.

Ultimately, Lin received multiple job offers and was able to choose the next step in her career. Now, she mentions her Thinkful project in interviews as an example of the skills she developed and as a way to get people interested in data science.

“I’ve definitely talked about this project during interviews, when they asked me to talk about work I’ve done or a project I’ve been excited about it,” Lin said. “It was a really fun project to do. I learned a lot about pet adoptions, and even about cat and dog breeds, and coat colors. When you’re looking for data science projects to do, it’s great to look into a project you’re interested in anyways.”

Thinkful helped change Lin’s life and career trajectory in meaningful ways, the same way adopting a pet can change its life for the better.

The next time you’re in the market for a new furry friend, don’t look for a cat named Cookie or a dog named Ginger — those were the most adoptable names from Lin’s data set. Lin’s data showed that nameless, older animals were less likely to be adopted, but that doesn’t mean they won’t love you any less.

This article was written for our sponsor, Thinkful.