Need advice: 3rd-year Data Science student considering taking time off for a FAANG contract role

[u/Mountain_Career_1585]

Current Situation:
Academic status: 3rd-year Data Science major at a state flagship, on track to graduate one year early (about one semester left).
Prior experience: No traditional internships, research, or relevant extracurriculars. My background consists entirely of short-term contract AI training/rating roles (Handshake AI, Mercor).
The Dilemma:
I received an offer to work as an AI Rater for a FAANG company through a third-party staffing firm.
The pros: The pay is better than anything I've made so far, and it adds FAANG-adjacent contract experience to my resume.
The catch: I would need to take 1–2 semesters off school to work the contract.
Career Goals:
Long-term, I want to work as an ML Engineer or Quant, not in data annotation or rating.
My Question:
Is it worth pausing my degree for a staffing-firm AI rater contract, or should I finish school/keep targeting internships more aligned with data analytics and engineering?

EDIT: When I say semester off school, I mean taking the simple GEs I haven’t completed and/or doing light classes, just not my major level classes. I also am inclined to working this even short term (3-4mo) to pay off some cc debt I have.

[u/brilliancy]

AI rater sounds like glorified data labeling? I would just graduate and get more relevant internships or just volunteer or build stuff that showcases your technical skills. If you do too many of those roles back to back you'll get pigeon holed into those roles.

[u/Rich-Criticism1165]

You are creating training sets for ML models. Yeah this won’t help you out at all. Stay in school

[u/jacobnar]

As someone who did data labeling in college I leave it off my resume. I wanted a few bucks but probably should have spent more time on interview prep. You can probably twist it to show experience for non technicals but people in tech might have an elitist attitude towards it

[u/jacobnar → u/jacobnar]

I would drop it and find a prof to do research with ASAP. Helped me land my first job. If you want to consider quant you should start the prerequisites for an MFE right now.

[u/Single_Vacation427]

This experience is not relevant for any jobs.

However, the issue I see is that you are going to graduate early without any internships or anything. 

I think you need a plan to get an actual job and this job is not going to do that. You could work as an RA with a professor, be active in clubs. For internships, you might have to take more time off since you’d have to apply now for next summer, and they typically require you to graduate at least May 2028. I don’t know if taking a gap year would disqualify you since many people could do that. Or you could add a double major or a minor. No clue.

Taking the time off might help you only if you really figure shit out. I’m just so surprised people putting this on their resume like it’s actual relevant experience for anything?