What I Learnt For The First Month In Data School
Basically, we were trained on Tableau and Alteryx mostly, with Power BI sessions every now and then. Since most sessions were with Tableau and Alteryx, we got to become comfortable with these two tools pretty quickly. Power BI was a bit of learning curve, but overall a nice bounce between tools and see how each one behaves differently. There are stuffs that I really didn’t know, especially about Tableau, the one tool I was familiar with before Data School.
Second Month, Here Comes Client Projects
Things started to get real. After building a pretty solid foundation with tools like Tableau and Alteryx, we were introduced to client projects – my first taste of working with real-world data. Essentially, a client project ran for a week, with a dedicated by project lead, either by randomly selected or volunteering. We were expected to dive into client’s data, understand their problems and deliver something meaningful to them. This is when I realized how messy real-world data can be. It was not all about building dashboard anymore, but rather problem-solving, dealing with ambiguity and picking up some of the domain knowledge on the fly.
Third Month, Mix of Everything
The last month was pretty similar to the second—a mix of training sessions and client projects—but there was one major twist: we had to stand in front of complete strangers and train them on a topic in either Tableau or Alteryx. I ended up running a Tableau session, and wow… it was definitely something new.
I’ve done presentations before, but this wasn’t just presenting—this was teaching, which is a whole different thing. It wasn’t just about showing a dashboard; it was about explaining concepts clearly, answering unexpected questions, and keeping people engaged. At first, I was nervous (who wouldn’t be?), but once I got into it, it actually felt pretty rewarding. It pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best way, and showed me how much I’d really learned.