It feels like an age since I started my journey with the Information Lab. I started my application 4 months ago when I had not even moved to London yet! A week in and it already feels like I am settled in. I guess gatecrashing the Christmas Party helped!
The first week was a challenge for me. I am still adjusting to life in the UK and it has been a while since I have tested my Tableau skills. Day one was all about setting up the different IT software's and getting the hang of Spacein!
Tuesday came and we were tasked with our very first Makeover Monday challenge... time to dust off the cobwebs. It was great to challenge ourselves with how much of a dashboard we could do in an hour and a bit. We also started to get to grips with the wild world of Alteryx, and for a lot of my cohort it was our first time using it. Ask me in a few weeks how I feel about it..
Wednesday was Alteryx day and we dived in a bit deeper. Robbin showed us all the tools we would need, what they were used for and when to use them. After a couple of hours, we were given our first Alteryx Challenge. We managed to complete it (somewhat) by ourselves so I guess that's a good sign?
Thursday we met with Claire and Benedetta, who gave us an insight into the supports available within TIL. Following this we had Tableau Prep essentials. It was great to see another way to clean and prep our data, although I wish I had known about this whilst doing my application...
Friday we were tasked with our very first presentation - to give a beginners guide to a data prep skill we had learned during our first week. I chose to do 'combining data on Tableau Prep'. We also got to listen in to DS35 's Client project which was brilliant. What wasn't brilliant was that we didn't realise that after this it was our turn to present.. in front of other cohorts! After the nerves settled, I think I can speak for the rest of DS37 when I say we were glad to have gotten the opportunity to practice in front of so many people. It gets easier that way, hey!
This brings me to why I am writing this post. Today we went back to basics and Lorna gave us a lesson on Data Viz 101. It was great to see how we could have changed the way we did our applications. The little mistakes seem so obvious now. We also were asked to do this weeks Makeover Monday, implementing all of the fundamentals that we have learned today. It was a tough one but definitely not as dauting as the week before. Practice makes perfect! To-do list for this week, to look back over my final application and implement some of the 'best practices' that we have learned today, hopefully it will be much better.