My First Week at the Data School

After weeks of anticipation, I've finally started working at the Data School and my first week is drawing to a close. If you're considering working here, you probably want to know what you're getting into so here's a quick overview of what we've done so far.

Day 1 - Meet the Team and Tech Setup

The first day was mainly focused on meeting people and getting an overview of the company. We were introduced to the coaches, managing director, sales team, consultant support staff, and a whole lot more people. We also learned about why our founder Tom Brown (who we'll meet when he visits next week) decided to found an entire new company when his old one was reluctant to switch to Tableau, which he believed to be the best available tool for data visualization. After that, we set up our new laptops so we would be ready to start our lessons.

Day 2 - Talking About Data, More Introductions, and Makeover Monday (or Tuesday?)

Our second day started with a discussion on why we do what we do. We went through a high-level overview of the modern data analytics pipeline and how a sample data architecture diagram looks, including where data comes from, where it's stored, how it's prepared, and other things. Later on, we got an introduction to the communities for Tableau and Alteryx (user groups, ambassadors, challenges, etc.). Our final hour was a Makeover Monday, where we tried to make a small dashboard in a short period of time. After spending dozens of hours on each of my application dashboards, this didn't go so well for me but at least we were all in the same boat!

Days 3 and 4 - Introduction to Tableau Prep

Tableau Prep is a data preparation tool used to get data into a format fit for analysis. We learned how to aggregate data, perform joins and unions to bring together data from multiple sources, output prepared data to a desired location, and more. Our main takeaway was probably that we had all wasted an enormous amount of time during our application process not using Prep. I'm looking forward to starting Alteryx, which sounds even more powerful.

Day 5 - Introduction to Client Projects and Presentations

Today is day 5 at the Data School. We began the day with an overview of what a client project entails. These are projects that DSers in training complete for clients over the span of a week. Each of us will get a turn to be a project manager for a client project. This afternoon, we'll get a chance to watch DSNY 6 (the cohort before us) present a client project.

After this discussion about client projects, we began our own (much smaller) project. After lunch, each of us will do a 5 minute presentation of a data architecture diagram we've constructed for an industry of our choosing. Overall, it's been a great first week and I can't wait to keep learning!

Author:
Daniel Bostrom
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