It’s day 2, and Andy has asked us to write down what we expect from our Data School experience. Peering over at the screens of my fellow DS16 members, I’m seeing lots of lists containing specific, tangible expectations, so I’ll try and mix things up a bit with some more abstract expectations.

So here we have my (possibly naïve) list of expectations going into the Data School:

• Difficulty – I’d be disappointed if the Data School process didn’t contain a fair few difficult challenges. We’re here to learn, and to become Tableau and Alteryx professionals. It’s not going to be easy…
• Failure (and hopefully some success) – I’m more than expecting to have my fair share of failures during this process, how else are we supposed to learn…
• Fun – from all that I know about the Information Lab, and the wider Tableau & Alteryx communities, I expect it will be difficult not to enjoy the experience!
• Opportunities galore – both during training, and on placement, I’m expecting (and looking forward to) a near-constant stream of opportunities to develop technically and professionally.
• A HUGE network – given the Information Lab’s presence in the data community (#datafam), I expect to meet plenty of new people, and learn a lot from their experiences in data.

It’ll be interesting to see if these turn out to be accurate when we come out the other end…