It’s been a number of weeks now since we finished our initial training and we officially passed the torch to DSAU8.
Our 16 week intensive training is all but done and we’ll soon be passing the torch to Cohort 8 before we head on our client placements.
Like any good blogger, it’s only natural to want to reflect on the training experience
Some of my musings on our journey so far.
The bit when we just started
Even though it feels like 5 minutes ago since we started at the Data School Down Under, our one-of-a-kind training gave us what feels like a lifetime of experience in just 4 months. It’s funny to think back to our first day when we didn’t really know what would be in store for us, we were just all apprehensive to get started in our new careers. After our first day of admin and setting our IT up we were straight into it, building up to our first Friday presentation, following only 3 days of training. The unique training program aside, what stands out about the Data School Down Under is the working environment and the whole Data School and MIP team. As a cohort we were welcomed with open arms and it wasn’t long before we newbies became part of the family. You can read a bit more about my experience of the first week here.
The bit when we learnt a whole load of cool stuff from scratch
As you probably know by now, the heart of our training was taking us from zero to hero in Tableau and Alteryx; two of the most complementary programs in the field of data wrangling, visualisation and analytics. Sure, we had to use Tableau for our initial application to get accepted onto the program, but the training has allowed us to explore the ‘why’, not just the ‘how’; we can always teach ourselves how to do something, but the training allowed us to unpick the why this works and why this is best practice. Most of us had no prior experience of Alteryx (if only we had). Our learning journey with these powerful tools is certainly not over but we’ve definitely had a great head start. It was definitely intense, but the coaches did a great job passing on their knowledge and experiences to us over the course of the training.
The bit when we had to create 5 dashboards and 5 blog posts in as many days
Dashboard Week has, by now, become legend in Data School folklore and it definitely lived up to its reputation. In short, we are tasked with finding a story in a dataset each day for a week and then presenting our dashboard back to the group the following morning. Rinse and repeat. Timeboxing is key here – i.e. setting time limits for what you want to try and achieve and if it’s not working, park it and move on. This is definitely easier said than done when you get 8 data enthusiasts together all wanting to show off and do the best they can. My tip for this week is to really keep it simple in the initial stages. If you find something you want to show, focus on that and resist any temptation to creep until you’ve got something you’d be happy to show. If you then have time to build upon that, then great. You just don’t want to be in the situation where you have several incomplete ideas rather than one complete one. In an ideal world you’ll be done by 5pm each day but in reality, if there’s one week in the training when you’re probably not going to want to make evening plans, this would be the one.
The bit where we had 7 client projects in as many weeks
A considerable part of the training period involved working on external client projects and applying our learnings to solve real-world business problems. Oftentimes we were able to deliver ready-to-use solutions, others we were able to deliver a proof of concept with an outline of the next steps; in reality some of the challenges we were set would be months’ worth of work, but we only had 5, very swiftly passing, days. The variety in the client projects we worked on meant we had exposure to a wide range of industries, data sources and outcome challenges by the time we finished our training. I think I speak for the rest of my cohort when I say that this was the most valuable part of the training. There were late nights, tears and many takeaways (food and otherwise), but each week we worked together as a team and never had a presentation where the client wasn’t blown away with what we’d been able to do with their data.
The bit where we have to face the big bad world again
The training may be over, but the learning has really only begun. Now comes the 2 years of rotation between client placements, which we are all excited but apprehensive about. Some of us already have placements lined up, others are just on the cusp of having theirs confirmed. In any case, we’re all keen to put what we’ve spent the last 16 weeks learning into practice and start adding value to our clients’ businesses.
Honourable mentions
Mavis, balls of destiny,