How I Would Learn Data Analysis (If I Could Start Over)

they say data is the new oil but refining it is  what makes it valuable data analysis learning data   analysis is one of the best things you can do if  I could go back in time I would not do it and I'll   explain in a bit but if I had to learn it all over  again this is exactly how I would do it I'll break   this video up into three parts mindset programming  and data visualization and if you're not in   college or university great this video is for you  it might be a bit more challenging but if you're   willing to put in the work you can definitely  become a data analyst all by yourself in fact if   I could go back in time I don't know if I would  have gone to University at all let's get into   it part one mindset data analysts and scientists  just think differently we approach the world in a   more analytical way and I can honestly say that my  day-to-day life has changed since I became a data   analyst data analyst data analyst from Southern  America step 1.1 adopt an analytical mindset and   what I mean by this is that in every situation  annoyance or issue you face in life there's an   optimal decision you can make you just need to  find it whether it takes you one minute one hour   or one day if you're able to see the data in front  of you you're able to make the best decision based   on that data and a lot of people ask me does  being analytical mean you have to be good at   math no not at all if you're good at math you're  probably analytical but if you're analytical you   don't have to necessarily be good at math being  analytical simply means applying logical reasoning   to find out more about something it means asking  the right questions to break down a problem to   its very essence and I'll give you an example  of being analytical in the real world whenever   I need to make a big purchase like a TV washing  machine or a car or whatever I always compare a   lot of different models I compare the cons and  pros of each the quality the functionalities   and the price so I can eventually pick the best  value for money that's being analytical and that   brings me to step 1.2 of the data mindset don't  trust verify in my seven years of being a data   analyst I've had so many managers come up to me  telling me my dashboard is wrong or the reports   are not correct while the data is 100% correct  or even worse sometimes managers would come up to   me and ask me if I could leave just a little bit  little part of the data set out of the data just   skew the data a little bit so it looks like we're  doing better than we actually are and that day I   realized that if I don't verify the data myself I  will never know if that data is actually telling   the truth and this applies to everything in your  life from the ads you see on TV the articles you   read on the internet and what politicians are  telling you about the economy they throw around   all these fancy terms and numbers but you gotta  understand numbers don't lie people do so as a   data analyst don't trust verify and as soon as I  internalized this fact I really started developing   my analytical thinking both in my professional  journey and in my personal life part two learn   programming I can't say it won't be challenging  but it will be absolutely worth it step 2.1 pick   your first tool well actually if you're absolutely  new to data analytics you might actually want to   start with the fundamentals of data analysis  first Step 2.0 get familiar with data analytics   and there is a really easy way to get started with  the basics of data analysis that I only wish I had   when I started my journey there's a free course  by IBM called the introduction to data analytics   it's hosted on Coursera a paid platform but they  have a seven day free trial which is more than   enough to finish this course so if you're just  starting out your journey into data analytics   this is a great way to start back to step 2.1  pick your first tool it's simple when you're   just starting out there's actually only two tools  you really should consider Excel and SQL they're   both tools that can be used to extract data from  data sources or queries to combine data and to   transform that same data simply put if I could  go back in time this is the way I would approach   it if you already have a job but it's not data  related then I would go for Excel because there's   a very big chance your company is already using  itself maybe you're already using Excel Excel is a   perfect stepping stone into some basic programming  data manipulation and even some data visualization   get good at it start using it in your day-to-day  work get familiar with formulas like VLOOKUP   IF-statements SUMIF start using Pivot Tables  and maybe even build some graphs in a report   or dashboard that you can use for yourself  maybe your team or your manager and if you   don't have a job yet and you want to get straight  into Data analysis then I would recommend picking   SQL first SQL is one of the simplest programming  languages used to talk to databases basically   just writing simple code to extract combine and  transform data next to Excel it is the second   most requested skill in data analysis jobs again  a big thanks to Luke Barousse for coming up with   this graph a free resource to get good at Excel is  excel-practice-online.com and and a great resource   to become a pro at SQL is learnsql.com it took  me way too much time to learn SQL properly and   I underestimated how important SQL actually is to  become a data analyst as I said it's the second   most requested skill for data analyst jobs so  if you want to learn or practice SQL check out   learnsql.com they have a set of over 65 Hands-On  SQL courses and it's a 100 online experience no   need to install anything on your device everything  happens through your web browser all learnsql.com   courses are interactive and based on real life  business scenarios meaning you'll be writing   SQL queries and seeing the results instantly  learnsql.com reached out to me to ask if they   could sponsor this video but I only said yes after  I took a look through the platform I checked out   their courses and realized this is exactly what I  needed when I was starting my data analyst journey   so of course I'm going to recommend it to you plus  they're letting me give away a great offer if you   click the link in the description and choose one  of the learning paths in SQL PostgreSQL or T-SQL   the best way to learn programming is by doing once  you've mastered your first tool it's time to get   into the more advanced data analytics step 2.2  pick your programming language and for this one   let me start straight with the resources ever  wanted to say that you've studied at Harvard   Harvard studied at Harvard well now you can there  are three data science courses that you can take   online from Harvard absolutely free and online  but before you start with those courses I would   recommend picking one programming language and  learning it deeply and it's really simple as a   data analyst you only have to choose between two  programming languages R and python R is mainly   programming language focused on statistical  analysis while python is a general purpose   language that happens to be very good for  data analysis as well meaning if you get good   at python for data analysis it might open up the  world for a lot of new job opportunities I would   recommend installing the Anaconda distribution for  Python and then installing spider as your IDE or   integrated development environment for programming  in Python to learn Python you can go to this free   website called learnpython.org where each lesson  explains a basic concept after which you have to   apply this concept to the problem again learn by  doing and once you know how to use Python you've   adopted this analytical mindset it's time for  you to apply your data analysis skills to your   personal life step 2.3 create a personal project  the first thing I would do is check out Reddit at   r/datasets to see if there are any interesting  data sets for you to analyze although practice   data sets are fine to grow your skills you need  some real life data to actually use it for your   personal projects another thing I would do is  learn how to scrape data from the web yourself   you could start scraping data from job portal  websites to analyze what kind of skills or tools   are most in demand for data analysts here's  a nice article on how to get started scraping   data from the job platform indeed.com and here  are nine other examples of personal projects you   could start yourself and once you get the hang  of it these personal projects are the best way   to grow your data analysis skills while building  your portfolio and actually building something   valuable for yourself all while getting a taste  of what it's like working as a data analyst go   ahead pick a topic you're passionate about  and ideally start a project where you get to   use all your skills and tools from web scraping  data extraction and transformation with SQL data   analysis with python and then visualizing the data  part 3 data visualization scraping transforming   and analyzing the data is one thing but conveying  a message or telling a story with the data is a   whole other thing our brains don't really like  numbers and statistics but we do like visuals and   stories and this is where the ability to create  effective visualizations comes in showing that you   can create visualizations that are both effective  and visually appealing will go a long way towards   impressing your potential employer step 3.1 pick  your BI tool there are many business intelligence   tools to pick from as a data analyst but if I  could go back in time I would only consider the   following two Power BI or Tableau Power BI  is part of the Microsoft stack so it works   smoothly with Excel and SharePoint it has its own  DAX programming language used to manipulate data   sets it's not the most user-friendly language  but it does its job and there's a free version   of Power BI to use to grow your skills and  Tableau is a BI tool with more extensive data   visualization capabilities than Power BI it also  has a nice no coding intuitive drag and drop way   of doing business analysis and you can practice  Tableau for free as well on public.tableau.com   for learning how to use both Tableau and Power BI  I would recommend Datacamp there's free courses   you can do and also paid ones congrats by this  point you're well on your way to becoming a   data analyst on how to actually land a job as  a data analyst I would recommend checking out   my other video where I explain how you go from  beginner to actually landing your first job as   a data analyst one last thing and this might  sound strange I don't want you to subscribe to   my channel seriously as I said at the beginning  of this video if I could go back in time I would   never have chosen to become a data analyst in  the first place because it took me seven years   of working as a data analyst to realize that I  don't want to work in an office for the rest of my   life I realized instead of climbing the corporate  ladder I'd rather pursue my own creative endeavors   scratch that entrepreneurial itch I have I  realized I want to achieve Personal Freedom   Location Freedom and Financial Freedom and learned  that data analysis might not guarantee actually me   achieving that so if you want to learn more about  data analysis and growing your data skills I would   recommend subscribing to Luke Barousse Ken Jee and  Alex The Analyst instead of me they're probably   the most brilliant data YouTubers out there  but if you want to learn how to create a life   of freedom Personal Freedom Location Freedom  and Financial Freedom and you want to see my   journey of creating a life of Freedom where  I share every single lesson I learn through   my YouTube videos then you might want to stick  around and I'll see you in the next video cheers

Channel: Stefanovic

Views: 30,210

Keywords: data analyst, data analytics, how to become a data analyst, data analyst job, data analyst career, data science, how to data analyst, learn data analysis, how to learn data analysis

Id: qWEHO8b6WbA

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2022