When it comes to beginning a new job, in a completely new field, it can be quite ominous for anyone. However, my first week at the Data School has been nothing short of fantastic. Let's get into an overview of the week, as well as sharing some of the most important learnings so far!
Building the foundation
The first week was a whirlwind of introductions and learning.
Monday was an orientation day, meeting our coaches and having an overview of the business operations and how The Information Lab operates from Robbin Kennedy. A session on making the most of our time at TIL from Myles Stevenson and Hannah Bartholomew, lead into a setup session with our brand new laptops and software by Craig Bloodworth.
Tuesday began by diving head first into the core concepts of data, exploring data structures and sources with Carl Allchin, ending with a session by Serena Purslow on the essentials of consulting, and learning how to understand a client's needs using techniques such as the "5 Why's".
Wednesday continued the data prep journey, learning about cleaning and reshaping data. The "4 rules of data cleaning" have sufficiently been stamped into my head and I intend not to forget them. Additionally, the reshaping techniques of Pivoting and Aggregation will certainly be useful in the many projects to come. Even more technical, unions and joins proved to be a tricky topic to grasp, but thankfully the concept settled in my mind.
By Thursday we were putting theory into practice by ploughing through the Preppin' Data Challenges as a group, which provided a healthy balance of frustration and accomplishment as we reviewed our work throughout the day.
Cometh the Friday, cometh the first Client Project... It's safe to say a mild sense of panic had made its way through the group, but we were eager to dip our toes into the world of consulting with our first piece of work. Admittedly, those 3 hours of work included a lot of blank stares at the computer screen, questioning myself and frantic clicking through tabs on my browser. Yet, against all the odds, fueled by the spontaneous discovery of a football (or soccer ball) on the ledge of a neighbouring building, I managed to complete a cohesive presentation accompanied by a Tableau workflow. The jury may still be out, but my self-assessment says I believe I did pretty well.
Below are some of the lessons I learnt during this first week.
The importance of prep
Having a plan of action when preparing your data is vital. Both understanding the data and having an idea of what state you want the data to be in. This plan helps to understand what process you need to make the transformation to the input data, and eases the task of implementing the transformation for analysis.
Case in point, during the first client project I was floored when I read the task and struggled to comprehend the data itself.
Questions. Don't stop asking questions!
There is a lot of information thrown at you during the first week. From learning new names, setting up computers, to learning new terminology and software. At times it teetered on an information overload and lead to being unsure about certain pieces. Once I asked questions to clarify parts of the software or data preparation I was unsure on, it becomes much easier. A special thank you to Carl for being so patient with my weird and wonderful questions!
Socialise!
Everyone at The Information lab is willing to help and answer a question, no matter how weird or concerning they may be. I am certainly one to test that, and everyone passed with flying colours for indulging me with their time. After work chit chat has been excellent so far, providing an opportunity to meet someone new within the team at TIL.
Upcoming...
I look forward to the coming week, where I'll be learning more about Tableau Desktop and completing the second practice client project.