Learning on the job, for me, was both nerve wracking and exciting. There were so many things that I wanted to do in my last position, that the time that I was at it didn’t ever feel like enough. I was inspired and motivated by all the change and things I wanted to enact and do and show that I could spend whole hours digging into possibilities, software, processes, things the organization hadn’t embraced yet.

On my own, learning independently of that position, is still fun as can be, but without the direction of specific projects and ideas, there’s less of that motivated thrill to it.

I’ve definitely found that having my own data projects to work on has helped me with independent learning, not least of all because it helps me ask what kind of insights I can still get, or how else I can visualize something.

I’m currently learning a deeper understanding of the ETL process, and I didn’t know about the name of it for a while. I’d been doing this already, especially with my grocery data. I still have so much more to learn about it, though, that i can’t wait to make some of my personally curated data even more effective.

Learning on the job is probably one of the things I’m looking forward to the most with taking up a new data analyst position. I’ll be able to let my mind run wild and get creative and dive and search for things I may not know or may not be familiar with, and refine the process- my process- to it and the data I want and what I want to show.

That’s also part of why I love data analysis and data science so much. It feels so intuitive to me, and it leans heavily on problem solving.

The two courses I’m currently working on have been hugely helpful to me. Codecademy’s Data Science Path gives more understanding of the programming side of Data Science, what tools can be used and how, and give examples of the best ways to use those tools. SuperDataScience’s A-Z Data Science has been enriching in a way I was not expecting because it is so deeply hands on and in depth that I’m devouring it.

Those are the two current ones I’m working on, but I’m also anticipating the Women in Data Residency Program, that starts in May.

A plus to independent learning for me has been that I don’t have any of this locked behind a position. I genuinely want to know more and want to learn as much as I can because I enjoy the process of data analysis, so having something self paced that I can sink my teeth into has been very satisfying.

Do you have a type of learning you prefer? How do you do with MOOCs? I’d love to know what you think!

I don’t think I’ll ever have one I prefer over the other, but I’m excited to see what comes of all of this learning, and the challenge that a new position will bring.

Thanks so much as always for sticking around and reading this, a break from my portfolio posts. May your data cleaning be swift and simple!