Hello everyone! My name is Stosh, and I am one of the newest consultants here at the Data School in New York! Now that I have finally completed the application process and am now knee deep in the training phase, I wanted to share some things about my experience and pass on some advice to people considering applying to the Data School.
To give you some background, I am a recent graduate of Rutger’s University with a degree in Business Analytics and Information Technology (BAIT, for short), so the application process wasn’t exactly my first experience working with analytics tools. I was first introduced to Tableau in my senior year of college, where I immediately fell in love with the software’s ability to convey insights in a digestible and beautiful way. I immediately realized that this was the kind of work I wanted to be doing in the analytics space and began searching for careers that specialized in data visualization. Not long after, I discovered the Data School.
I spent maybe 40 hours in total working on my application in the Spring of 2024 and I thought it was perfect, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to secure a spot. In that moment, I had 2 choices - Either stop now and focus on other areas of the analytics industry, or keep creating visualizations. I am so glad to say that I kept making vizzes and experimenting with Tableau, even when I didn’t exactly know where it would lead me.
Later that summer, I landed a job as a data engineer at an accounting firm, and as it got busier and life got more eventful, I stopped building in Tableau almost entirely. It was a very difficult phase of my career because I was so happy to finally be a part of the corporate world, but I struggled with the fact that my job didn’t include data analysis and data visualization. Eventually, I reached a head and decided that I needed to keep my passion for dashboarding and visual analytics at the forefront of my career search. That is when I saw that the Data School was recruiting for their newest cohort and decided to give it one more shot, and thankfully this time I was accepted!
Throughout the entire process, I learned so much, both about Tableau and the data visualization industry as a whole. If I had to boil down my entire experience to 3 tips for future applicants, it would be the following:
- Love the work - This application is a much bigger commitment than most jobs, both in time and effort, and people may find it tedious if they don’t feel motivated by analyzing data and uncovering insights. If building your application doesn’t feel like ‘work’, then you are on the right track!
- Do your research - Almost every ‘cool’ graph or visual element I was able to do in Tableau was learned from an online blog post or tutorial video (Many of which were created by TIL consultants!). Look around the community to see what you can achieve and let their learning materials take you to a new level!
- Connect with others - I know it is intimidating at first, but the Tableau community, affectionately named the ‘DataFam’, consists of some of the nicest and most helpful people you can find out there. If you reach out to people with good energy, they are usually more than happy to provide you the help you need!
All in all, if you love data visualization and would like to make a career out of it, there aren’t many better places to start than the Data School. If you have any questions about the program, your application, or just the industry in general, please reach out to me on LinkedIn! I would be delighted to help your data visualization journey.