Getting started in data

Continuing on the path I started the other day, here’s another blog post that I first wrote internally back in March of this year.

The question: How do you think you can encourage more women in data?

I think the toughest part of getting started in data is understanding the field and feeling confident working within it. It took me some time to realize that working with data is a mindset. It isn’t a functional area reserved for someone who has amazing coding or technical skills. It is for people who are detail oriented and want to understand the “why” behind things.

Finding the reason or purpose behind causes is one of my favorite components of working in data. Within this field, you get the opportunity to do that everyday. I am also extremely passionate about taking the data and creating a visual story with it.

If you’re interested in data or want to know if it is the right field for you, ask yourself if you like knowing the “why.” I’d also be curious if you are driven to mastery. Within the data field there are daily opportunities to learn and apply that newly found knowledge to your job. If that’s something you like doing, data and data analysis is the right place for you.

I’ve been in several analyst roles and they have meant different things. The technical skill set and applications have always varied widely, but there have been a few universal constants. Those constants are extensions of your personality – being a great problem solver, a critical thinker, and someone who can both reach solid conclusions AND (more importantly) communicate them. These few skills are what make people great analysts. The tools they use are just there to help them broadcast their findings.

If you’re on the fence, I would also encourage you to go find some data available in your daily life. There’s literally mountains of data out there. Find something that you’re interested in knowing more about and analyze it. It is a great exercise to start thinking like a data analyst and I guarantee you that you’ll find something new and interesting.

Once you’ve analyzed one data set, find something totally different. See what commonalities in the structuring of the data you can find. After having received hundreds of different data sets, I can tell you there are several commonalities. The more you practice with any set of data, the better you’re going to get at overall data analysis.

My last comment would be to remember there’s never one right answer in data analysis. It is a creative and interpretive field. Your interpretations should be based on the truth of the data, but realize once you’re in the analysis driver’s seat it’s up to you to showcase what’s important.

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