While the world turned upside-down by the Coronavirus (COVID-19), we ended our 4 months Data School training with a virtual graduation yesterday. Here are some thoughts I would like to share with those we are thinking about joining the data school or about to start their data school journey. This is also a blog for myself, to remind me of this incredible experience.
To the Coaches
Craig and David always helped the team without holding back. They always make themselves available for us sometimes I feel bad how busy we make them. But we still have so much we can learn from their extensive experience and expertise.
To the Family
Just like how Nick mentioned in his blog, we have become family to each other in our cohort. We ask each other for help and don’t have to worry about looking silly in front of each other. We can be ourselves in front of each other, which is rare in today’s workplace. It also worth mention how diverse the team is, especially in terms of personalities and cognitive diversity. I am proud of everyone in the team and how much progress we made through training.
To the Alumni
During the training, we have received a lot of support from all the Alumni from day one. They trained us on various topics, hung out with us during Friday drinks, helped us with clients’ projects and supported us emotionally. After all, they are the ones that went through everything we were experiencing, which makes them the best mentor in many ways.
To Tableau & Alteryx
Having been training on those two products, our skills have been improved significantly. We have not only been shown the knowledge but also how to expend the knowledge and learn more.
With Tableau, there are many always new things to learn and to master, let alone the exercises available like Makeover Monday and Workout Wednesday. Tableau public is such a fun platform that allows users to show off skills and sharing knowledge.
As for Alteryx, there are plenty of Alteryx challenges on the Alteryx community website. I can not only learn from the challenges but also everyone on the community website through their solutions. I am particularly interested in analytics apps because of their huge application potential in the enterprise environment.
There are also many certifications for those two products out there and I plan to study for them during my time in between placements. In conclusion, I will keep the momentum going and further study Tableau and Alteryx and many other tools related.
To the new chapter
Applying data school is one of the best decisions I ever made, and this has been affirmed by the intense training that just finished. The technical and soft skills that I learned, the friendship I picked up along the way will benefit me for more years to come. This experience has also now become part of me and who I am. Standing at the end of the training journey, I look forward to the new chapter of my data school life with great confidence and gratitude.
