Thinking of applying to the Data School? Accepted to the Data School but still don’t know what it will be like (honestly, it’s risky applying to any job without knowing anything – please don’t do this next time). Then this blog post is for you.
How our week depends on the ‘type’ of the week we’re at. This post will cover our daily lives in the different weeks during our training before placements.
Typically there are 3 different weeks:
- Normal training week
- Client project week (7 weeks)
- Dashboard week (1 week)
What we do during these weeks
1) Normal training week
The first few weeks are the normal training weeks. We start our day at 9 am and have tutorial-like classes on the different tools, such as Alteryx, Tableau, etc. On Friday, we’ll be provided with a hands-on challenge based on what we’ve learnt during the week and will have to present what we’ve worked on (it can be Tableau dashboard, Alteryx workflow or even both) in the afternoon.
Regardless of what week it is, we’ll always have a presentation every Friday. Some people are scared of the idea of presenting every week, but trust me when it comes to public speaking or other skills, you need to practice it regularly otherwise you’ll get rusty.
2) Client project week
During these weeks, we’ll be working on projects for real clients – so expect messy data and scratching your head trying to understand the data from an industry you hardly have experience in or even figuring out the ‘real’ requirements.
On Monday, we have our client briefing meeting where the client will tell us about what they want and their problem, and we can also ask questions to clarify. Most often at this time, there is too much information to digest, and I found
There is still training for half of the days so technically we only have three days to complete the client project.
Different clients. Learned how to deal with different stakeholders.
3) Dashboard week
Just like its name, it’s a whole week dedicated to making dashboards. Many former data schoolers often mentioned this week to be the most gruelling week. However, I found the client projects to be more intense. In dashboard week, you can decide on how much you want to do for your dashboard.
If you want to create an impressive dashboard with limited time, you can make a smaller viz. You can also put more emphasis on what you’re stronger in (e.g. design, data storytelling, etc.) so it will take less time and you can get a good result. But since the consequence of not coming up with what’s expected is much lighter compared to client projects, instead of aiming to repeatedly do what I know will make good dashboards, I used this week to experiment with different approaches and to see how far I can do within one day.
Work hard, play hard
Seems intense? Yes, it is. But it’s actually enjoyable because