Being the new kids on the block at the Data School as part of DS 33, it's been a week filled with introductions, introductions and introductions. There's also been some learning too.

The first day was all about getting used to the surroundings, setting up the laptops that were given to us, sorting out account details to the myriad of services that the Data School utilises, as well as meeting and learning about the other members of your cohort. This is typically where the nervous feelings you have tend to fall off, as it really does click that everybody else is going through the same processes that you're going through and that there have also been 32 other cohorts that have done the exact same thing you're doing.

Then you get to lunch. That's when the fun begins.

Being someone that loves food, the office's location of being in Watling Street was a massive bonus. The area is surrounded by ideal lunch locations, some being price performers, others being more luxurious, but they certainly all don't lack in flavour. This explains the featured image being a sandwich. The butcher's across the road is a must-go, with their sandwiches being one of the only places that I've tried so far that fits in the middle of the Venn diagram of being a price performer and delicious. That's not to say everywhere else isn't worth your time, but more that the butcher's deserves most of it. I'm not sponsored to say this by the way.

(The burrito was pretty good too)

Coming off of the food high of Monday, we started learning about Alteryx. At first a daunting software, taking the time and listening to your teacher, pieces start falling into place and you realise what looked like a software riddled with circles and thin lines connecting to other circles starts to make more sense and the circles and lines begin to have more meaning and you notice that they all play a important part in not only preparing the data but also providing some analysis at the same time. Getting a basic understanding of the software and getting to grips with how it works best sums up our Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Today, we tackled Tableau prep. In short, much more visually appealing than Alteryx and almost seems easier, with most tools that we learnt about and used in Alteryx being grouped into just one on Prep. I liked it for this, and so far I do enjoy it more because of that level of automation and its simplicity, but I'm sure give it some more time and I'll come to see it as being as complex and daunting as Alteryx is.

Tomorrow, we're going to be tasked with a project. Judging from previous blogs it'll be about adding some data onto our initial application to the Data School.

Sounds like fun. I get to talk about Bigfoot again...