Dan’s Data Analyst Experience
The thing that first got me interested in data analytics was actually not me at all: my brother (who works primarily in marketing) kept coming across data-related roles – particularly analytics – in his job. Every time he came across it, he’d tell me how much I’d love it. The first two or three times, I ignored him, but after the fifth or sixth time, I thought, “Maybe I should explore this”. Three days later, I started the bootcamp!
I found out about the bootcamp on the skills bootcamps section of the gov.uk website. After visiting The Curious Academy’s website and looking at their LinkedIn, I decided to apply.
Going into the bootcamp, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, so I didn’t have any fixed goals; it was more to learn about data analytics and whether or not it was an area worth exploring further (spoiler: it was!).
The learning experience was fantastic. Matt is incredibly knowledgeable about pretty much everything related to data analytics, and it’s very clear that he has a genuine passion for the subject and for teaching it. The in-person sessions primarily revolved around group work, while the online ones were mainly independent working. This switch between working with the others in the cohort and working individually resulted in a solid balance between developing soft skills and technical skills, as well as getting to know everyone in the group. As far as ‘lectures,’ there weren’t really any. The bootcamp was pretty much entirely hands-on working, which worked really well for me, and – from what I understand – everyone else too.
In terms of technical skills, the course focused primarily on Microsoft Excel (and alternatives, such as Google Sheets) and Tableau, and touched on SQL and Python. That being said, Matt is constantly looking for new things to add to the course curriculum and improving his own skillset to optimise the bootcamp. However, the thing that I found most useful about the course – and is something that is a major focus of it – is mindset teaching and soft skills. It taught me more than just the technical aspects of being a data analyst; it put me into the mindset of one. This included problem-solving and social challenges, such as presentations.
I listen to a LOT of music, and around the same time I was due to start my final project, I discovered that you can request your entire Spotify listening history as a .csv file. This was the perfect opportunity to combine my love for music and showcase my skills. I cleaned the data (accounting for ‘Remastered’ and other variations), imported the MusicBrainz database (a database containing pretty much every official release ever), and joined it with my Spotify Data using appropriate queries. I then exported the final dataset as a .csv and imported it into Tableau, where I built the dashboard as shown. It is interactive, and you can drill down by year. I learned a plethora of new skills, such as database architecture (reading entity relationship charts, primary and foreign keys, etc.) and Tableau mapping, massively improved my SQL skills, and overall had a great time doing it.
The elements of the bootcamp I’m most proud of and excited to showcase to employers is my enthusiasm for data and dedication to learning it and improving my skillset. Matt led the course in such a way that there was always something to learn and something to be excited about without feeling overwhelmed. This passion grew throughout the course, and I can definitely say I’m a full-on data nerd!
Something I was incredibly worried about in the early stages of the bootcamp was the social aspect of it. Meeting new people is often scary, especially with no idea what or who to expect. That being said, everyone – both in the cohort and employees of The Curious Academy – was incredibly friendly, welcoming, and supportive throughout the duration of the course and beyond. I have built friendships that I’m sure will last for years to come, which are consequences, be it directly or indirectly, of the bootcamp. I managed to overcome the initial stages of social worry by simply telling myself, “if I don’t get on there, I can stop going, and realistically, I’ll probably never see these people again” – a little unconventional, but it worked for me!
On the course, I discovered that I’m much more creative than I ever thought I could be. Designing dashboards and bringing to life the stories in the data is so much fun and something that allows me to blend creativity with logic and analytics.
The bootcamp goes beyond the technical fundamentals for data analytics, like Microsoft Excel, Tableau, and SQL. While these act as the foundation of a data analytics career and are essential, getting a career in data is more than your technical skills. Soft skills and a problem-solving mindset are highly valued in the data world, and The Curious Academy’s skills bootcamp really helped develop both of these.
The Curious Academy is an incredible training venue. It goes beyond the solid music choices, cleverly placed objects of intrigue around the venue, and fantastic service (including tea and coffee); there is a sense of community. On top of that, The Curious Academy’s venue is objectively immaculate: clean, tidy, and installed with everything you need to put your head down and get to work.
I have secured a data analyst internship at Urban Science - an international automotive data analytics company, where the skillset I gained on the bootcamp, as well as my self-study since the beginning of – and after – the bootcamp, has been invaluable in both the interview and the internship itself.
Now that I’ve completed the course, I hope to keep developing my data storytelling skills with Tableau and PowerBI, as well as the more technical aspects of data analytics, such as SQL and Python. Ultimately, I hope to branch out more into database/data warehouse architecture and learn more about data engineering as a whole.
Having worked as a freelance copywriter for a couple of years, my experience managing and communicating with clients, coupled with the attention to detail and ability to follow clients’ requests needed in the job, transfer directly across to data analytics.
If you’re already considering applying, my advice would be just to go for it! The Curious Academy completely blew away all my expectations in the best way possible. To get the most out of the experience, I would say attend in-person (as opposed to online) as much as you can, and make your default answer “yes!” to opportunities within the bootcamp, such as meeting people and presentations.
Connect with me on LinkedIn! I’m always happy to talk about the bootcamp or anything data-related! linkedin.com/in/danwindsor