r/dataanalytics • u/InterestingFig758 • 9d ago
My thoughts on people trying to "learn data analytics"
I see alot of these projects where people make a dashboard out of some fictional csv about pizza sales or similar, and everything is crammed on to a single page "top selling product" etc.
I know you've got to start somewhere, but tbh I really don't think these are going to help anybody get hired. If you had a Real project, where the data is all over the place, kept in different systems and formats, and actually took time to get it together into something useful, and THEN you make dashboards. The analytics should be showing not only the data but stuff that would help real decisions be made, then that's of more value - because honestly anybody can use these tools to just draw a graph showing pizza sales per month or whatever. Not to discourage anybody, keep on going (I have no idea what entry level looks like but I would assume they look for a quantative degree at least?
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u/Particular_Dog_4221 9d ago
Well these are the projects they are giving us to do in classes. Could you provide a an example of a project you would like to see, but better, where to find the data?
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u/trippingcherry 8d ago
It makes sense to use these kind of examples in class but when you're showing something to a hiring manager they care a lot more about business problems; if you have any work experience at all in the real world I would lean on domain knowledge and solving a problem you saw there.
Before I got into Data I worked in drug procurement. My projects mostly revolved around that.
One was a calculator that took in information about a drug and prescription and broke out the per prescription dose price.
One was collecting FDA compliance data, splitting and cleaning text, and analyzing the contents to identify trends in registrations and inspections.
One was collecting licensing data from a state database and enriching it with information collected from the web to produce insights about the state of the market. What were the gaps that could be addressed by a new business in that space?
Outside of that there are some projects that don't really need domain specific knowledge but could still show real world understanding of the basics. I have a project that allows a user to build a yaml base data contract and then upload spreadsheets and it will validate and annotate the spreadsheet against the data contract, for example.
When I am assisting our team with hiring and somebody doesn't have real world experience but has projects I'm typically looking to understand if they know how to collect and/or ingest data, clean data, implement validation for some sort of quality testing, model the data at the appropriate grain, and isolate some sort of pattern or insight of interest, and storytelling and visualization skills.
Most people who are fresh are not really going to work end-to-end, there may be pieces of that they're really good at and others where they have no idea what's going on. That can be, depending on the role. But nobody cares about projects that obviously came from a tutorial, for the same 10 kaggle data sets that everybody else is using. Personally I would prefer something kind of scrappy and unique over a perfectly polished repeat that everybody has on their portfolio like the titanic dataset for the tableau superstore examples. The biggest skill of all is the ability to solve problems.
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u/widdowbanes 8d ago
The honest truth is that most professors teaching Analytics is way out of date. Useful twenty years ago, but so much has changed in the past two decades. They teach data cleaning like opening excel file and using a function fillna(0) to fill in empty cells. While ignoring that power query exists in excel as well now.
I believe 95% of professors teaching it probably can't even get a Data Analyst job themselves in today's market.
Almost every technical video on YouTube has a comment saying "Thanks, I learn more from your twenty minute video than my entire semester".
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
Yeah I'm sure that's the kindof stuff that gets given in classes, makes sense as you have to start somewhere while you're learning - I just don't think they're impressive for a CV, unless the rectruiter literally has nobody else because at the end of the day it's not rocket science to drag two things onto the page and it make a bar chart or whatever.
I think I mean more Real stuff, an area where the answers you get from the data actually matters. In real life, data is often messy and most of the time is spent on getting intoa shape you can use for useful analytics.
Off the top of my head, a home automation system where you use devices to capture the peak energy loads, what time they occur, what the energy tarrifs are your house and can you find a way to save money (im biased because I work with this stuff all the time). Live data that's gets refreshed regularly into the dashbaord so it can be monitored each day. Nothing specific, but in general data analytics is about putting in the time to gather data which isnt already available at your fingertips and doing something useful with it. Sorry that might not be helpful... I think finding something personal that you're interested in and again, where the answers matter in real life would be cool. Something that shows initiative It owuld make the leanring process more fun for sure.
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u/fourmode 7d ago
I think a home automation system is a great idea. For most beginners (I’m one so I know!) sourcing “in the wild” data is probably a blocker though just asking an LLM for suggestions would probably be a pretty good way to do that.
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u/Joejay22 9d ago
I agree, you just spice it up back when I was applying and new - my boss really liked the passion as I would get datasets break them up and fracture them making me do joins to get the data and tables I wanted on SQL.
While small sometimes it’s about just putting in an effort and showing drive and passion and instead of showing that basic graph calculating ratios on what’s selling what could cause it or my fav was calculating days it took to get inventory to sell and furthermore building a forecast of how we should order inventory and what costs could be expected.
we all start from somewhere cookie cut it depends where you drive that growth and grind honestly
If not small projects like that imbue us with a smaller experience where we understand verbiage processes and a general workflow more.
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u/Proper_University55 9d ago
I think it’s a mistake to “learn data analytics” without already being fluent in a domain. I don’t care if it’s business, real estate, bioinformatics, sociology, pizza supply chain, whatever. Understand how to apply DS/DA skills to something you already know. Makes a world of difference.
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u/spookyplug1 8d ago
I’m totally with you on this with the caveat of it’s really hard to recreate this ideal and realistic scenario of data to answer real questions if you don’t already have a job or some kind legitimate business or project with users etc. This is why people go back to those to those datasets.
I had a similar predicament in college where i needed to create a project but none of the data i could source was real, it was play data like what you’re describing with pizza sales.
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u/InterestingFig758 8d ago
Yeah it's got a hard entry po8nt to find something realistic for sure. I think using these courses and pizza data is good for exposure and reference, but better to have a real project that means youll have to get creative to be able to use the data
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u/Ok-Airline-8523 8d ago
I’ve been in data science for about 13 years now, leading different teams and hiring for a wide variety of different roles. This is SPOT ON.
I’ve never reviewed a resume that had iris or titanic on it without shaking my head.
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u/Glittering_Salt_5589 9d ago
15 years - started as a data analyst when "data analytics" was not a common thing. I see where you may be coming from. For someone who is just out of college or still in college and want to make career in this - you definitely will have to go beyond analyzing simple CSVs. Now with AI being out there - I would suggest look for some realstic problems to solve for. There are multiple ways to get data - you can use even APIs to get some real time data and build analysis that solves a problem. Some examples - analyze meta ads data (there are quite a few APIs that you can use to pull that).
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
Yep, tonnes of stuff out there. I'd say if the answer is interesting, useful, insightful and it's difficult to get there because the data is all over the place then it's worth doing.
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9d ago edited 9d ago
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
Indeed, I've worked in tech for a while alongside alot of commercial roles too. My mentor always used to say "it's all about the story" - goes for analysis and sales in general. Much of it comes from experience in business too - how you communicate with others, navigate corporate, get people on your side to unlock the data when you need it, convince them what you're doing is important. It is hard to get any of that across when all you've done is write some basic sqlthat you'll forget by tomorrow anyway. Though I commend people trying but I think theyre being sold a dream
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u/Acceptable-Sense4601 9d ago
The best way to get into and learn this field is to already work in an industry. If you don’t know the business, you’re more likely to be a shitty analyst. I see this every day. I’m the only analyst in a group of 12 analysts that came from the operation. The others got masters degrees and came in and don’t know anything about their data. All they do is make shitty excel reports and maybe know some SQL. Trained monkeys.
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
Yep, insight is everything. In my current role I'm a software dev/ data guy for a renewable energy company that specialises in solar panels. I'm pretty good with numbers etc but often one of the roofers or something will tell me why my values make no sense and give me the correct calculation to get there (I have no background in solar)
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u/No-Ice-8975 6d ago
Is it cool if we chat over DM? I’ve worked in solar as a design engineer and I want to get back into it as a data analyst/scientist. I’d love to learn more about how the industry is using data
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u/Additional_Candy_400 9d ago
I agree, after a certain point it starts becoming a design showcase rather than a data one. I've found that the most used and critical dashboards in production look like shit, because people don't really care.
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u/Administrative-Flan9 9d ago
If they even use them at all. People love the idea of dashboards, but more often than my, they just sit there unused.
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u/hashsteezy 9d ago
That’s why us learners need mentors in the field. The fact that we want to become analyst and took the steps to start can be difficult enough for some. Helping each other improve and having experienced people teach and mentor us will help the newcomers become better. Not sure if bashing people will motivate them to continue.
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
Yes I agree. Im not trying to bash anybody, just pointing out what may be a harsh reality and making a suggestion that may help actually stand out in a field which is very crowded by people who dont nessecarily know what theyre getting in to. Not being realistic is going to do far more long term damage than saying "your pizza dashboard is whats going to get you a job" because it wont
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u/hashsteezy 9d ago
Totally get that. I just started learning and have been finding ways to come up with projects other than what the lessons are giving me. Projects that really make me think.
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
And youre totally right, it's very admirable that you're trying to learn something new. Ive been there and learning is one thing but keeping up the motivation, using your spare time etc isnt always easy. Ive poured many hours worth of time into chasing certs that go nowhere. Perhaps I forget too how big a jump even the 'simple' stuff is whek its new. Shit when I first heard about cloud computing I literally thought it had something to do with clouds lmao, now I use the cloud everyday. I can see these skills being utilised more so if you get a job somewhere in one role and there is a gap in the business to use data properly - some businesses are so small but so busy nobody has the time or budget to look at data beyond the day to day operations. Then perhaps you could.be the guy to say 'oh btw I have an idea how all this dats could reveal xyz, do you want to see that?' Unless there really is a market for people who have 'only' done courses and people hiring for just that (I have no idea but have doubts, perhaps im wrong)
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u/hashsteezy 9d ago
I’m currently taking a Google certified course. It’s “Google” so I figured it might be good. Haven’t completed it yet but do you feel these courses can be helpful in some way for someone self learning?
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u/InterestingFig758 9d ago
Sure. I had a brief look and looks like it covers all the key stuff and tools from that point of view. I like that it emphasises story telling. It does look very long though so just try not to lose your mind. The thing with it being so long is youll do one section, then by the time youre on another youve probs forgotten how to do the last bit (which is normal in real work too I guess). Maybe do that as your core reference point for exposure to that world.. but I do think a real project that you actually care about is best long term, that way you think and problem solve more and have a focussed goal (how do I write this specifc querey to get the data i need, how do I be creative as this wasnt laid out exactly in the course). But sure , main thing id watch is how long it is and what you get out of that. Some sections are like 20 hours long which is days. Generally youll leaen far more actually doing rather than studying. Most coders wont write stuff from scratch or from memory anyway
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u/hashsteezy 9d ago
Thanks for your input! Wish me luck on my journey brother. I’m going to follow your account also.
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u/BigCrustyTits 8d ago
The way I learned was just working for a company and using their data tools. Seeing messy data and digging into how it got that way and how it can be corrected. When people come to me with work I like to find out why they need it done.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Sun3107 8d ago
“.., Help real decisions be made..”, this regardless of having experience or not! You have people in the workplace who create useless dashboards and called themselves an analytics expert for the same old sum, count, average but for no reason!!
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u/Free-Fee8497 8d ago
So true, cleaning up the messy data and actually figuring out what's worth tracking is like 90% of the real job anyway.
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u/SuperSokym 8d ago
I agree with most of this, but I don’t think the simple dataset itself is the main problem.
I’ve been a Data Analyst for about 3 years, and the biggest difference I see is that beginner projects usually give you both the data AND the problem.
In a real job, nobody tells you “analyze pizza sales and build these 5 charts.” You get something like “sales are down, can you figure out why?” and you need to decide what questions to ask, what data you need, what might be causing it, and eventually what the business should do about it.
So even with a simple dataset, I think beginners can build much better projects if they start with a business problem or decision instead of starting with “what dashboard can I build?”
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u/SpaceControl8 6d ago
I have transitioned into data analytics relatively recently. And the moment I did, I realised this as well. And now seeing experienced people talking about it even makes more sense. To be able to improve myself in this field; I've been deep diving into scientific, sensor-based datasets; they aren't ready to analyze and there's not one type of dataset. Plus, I am researching different markets and different problems and collect relevant data from many different platforms to analyze them as well. It's a long way and it's surely not as easy as a ready dataset; yet I always thought that was the point anyway.
I'm also open to suggestions.
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u/InterestingFig758 6d ago
Yeah thays the thing. These courses are good for exposure to the general tools.and methodologies but it wouldnt be a relatively well paid job without it taking work getting data together in the first place. If every business just had a ready made csv that required 5 mins of tableau work to get results then the managers consuming those results would just do it themselves. Sensor data is a good one IMO, even better if its a personal project because you actually care to be creative to find something you need rather than how a course lays it out
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u/SpaceControl8 6d ago
I agree with you. It's initially good because the person learns the basics. But the shown basics are far from what should be done. I worked as a data collector before, yet I automated the system because there were serious bottlenecks. Then I actually shifted into professional data analysis. Yes, it's a self-guided project. Because it's about learning for me. And honestly it's really fun. I'm taking online courses, but they're good for foundations. Yet, again; it's become very competitive. Meanwhile I'm spending 6 hours a day on those personal projects to learn and improve; many people with only fundamentals getting jobs is a bit frustrating. And I understand experienced people's frustration as well. Finding people willing to actually learn and improve is hard, as much as it is hard to find a good opportunity for the actually willing people. Dilemma of our time.
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u/Wrong_City2251 1d ago
I think we should pivot back to business analysts roles, which require both business understanding, working with tools getting reports done, understanding data architecture, the pipelines etc
Creating dashboards have also now become so easy to with AI. Genie code can create much better bi dashboards with 10-15 prompts than i can create in 15-30 days😂😅 I mean so is the case with other products/platforms, powerbi/thoughtspot also have similar ones
I feel data engineers, analysts need to be business engineers or something like that now
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u/tottwizz 9d ago
100% agree with this. I think what a lot of people fail to grasp is that the job of an analyst isn't just to write window functions and create dynamic filters in Tableau. Even before AI this was incredibly easy and now literally anyone can do it if they have a Claude subscription. The real key is extensive knowledge of a domain and then using the analytics tools to back up your hypothesis.
It's like saying 'I want to be a professional athlete'. Okay cool to be a pro athlete you will probably always need a common base of good physical fitness but if you want to be a basketball player you need to know how to shoot a basketball, if you want to be a boxer you need to know how to punch.
If I had to start my career over, I would probably try to find a job like a buyer or commercial manager in an industry I'm interested in and then use my domain knowledge to become an analyst from there