Building on last weeks' theme, it's Thursday which means it's time to reflect on my past week at The Data School.
Monday - Theory of Problem Solving
My week started with the weekly #MakeOverMonday challenge, in which you take a dataset/visualization chosen by Andy, and try improve it in an hour. I'm still not used to the time pressure, but hopefully will be by next week! For the rest of the day we set upon discussing the Theory of Problem solving, researching companies, and looking at User Stories.
Monday evening was our first meal out as a cohort - a good chance to get to know everyone a bit better, and pig out on some pizza!
Tuesday - Data Viz 101
We came into the office on Tuesday morning to see a table full of paper and crayons - a sign it would be a fun day! Sure enough, we spent the morning sketching graph upon graph, going through the best practices of data visualization, and what graphs to choose when.
We finished the day with a mini project in which we had to choose and sketch a graph based on a user story i.e. what would be the best way to present the clients' data, according to the problem they want to solve. Below is my finished sketch.
Wednesday - Tableau
Wednesday meant unlearning the Tableau skills we had gained during the interview process, and relearning them from scratch. We went through Tableau Desktop basics, going through function upon function before trying out a few exercises based on what we'd learnt.
I'm already amazed at how much I have learnt in 8 days.
Thursday - Tableau, Tableau, Tableau
Today was pretty similar to yesterday - focusing on how to use Tableau Desktop. We got into creating and running parameters, calculations, and applying these tools when building a dashboard.
I decided to recreate my user story sketch (see above) in Tableau, using the same data as I had planned my Viz with. The dataset, created for training purposes, was auto generated and sadly this is only too visible in my Tableau viz. Needless to say, this was a humbling lesson in the realities of what you want your data to look like vs what it actually looks like.
Friday - Presentation Day Round 2
Building on the previous week, tomorrow will be our second presentation day at the Data School. Last week the thought of presenting something in the office communal space, where anyone could listen in, made me seriously nervous. I can't say I'm expecting to feel any differently tomorrow, but hopefully by week 5 or 6 I'll be able to breeze through presenting?