A two month delay to the start of DS20 had me turning to puzzles, baking and crochet to keep busy at home, so when week 1 finally came around it was a bit of a shock to the system. Luckily, the coaches eased us into it with a morning of tech set-up (an essential first step for our online training), followed by an afternoon of introductions. Having said that, would it be The Data School if the day ended without a rush of adrenaline? The result of my first Makeover Monday created in just one hour (seen below) felt underwhelming but the challenge was fun and the best thing was seeing what the rest of the cohort produced.
For the rest of the week we focused on Alteryx Essentials and it was immediately hands-on. I had never used Alteryx before but by the end of the week I had followed along with what I called the ‘Mega workflow’ and completed three challenges. We mostly worked in pairs, which I found incredibly useful and helped prepare me for the last day – challenge day! We were all suddenly on our own, but the thing about the DS is that you’re never really on your own.
My main takeaways from this week were:
- Blog. Blog. Blog.
- Ask for help. As much as you can. As soon as you can.
- Planning is key – whether it’s dashboarding in Tableau or cleaning data in Alteryx
- The objective is to learn, so don’t worry about getting things wrong, not doing as well as you planned or completely messing up. The point is to learn about your strengths, weaknesses and limitations and figure out what you could have done better.
- I’m excited for what’s to come!
