How to Learn Data Analytics (if I was starting over)

hi i'm jen i've worked in analytics for 15 years in a variety of different positions last week i talked about how i personally learned analytics both early in my career before my career even started and what i currently do i thought it'd be interesting now today to talk about what i do differently if i was learning analytics from scratch specifically what approach would i take assuming that i was starting completely from scratch today i didn't have a degree in math i had no background in analytics had never done anything related how would i learn data analytics [Music] i'll mention a few resources throughout the video and you'll find links to all of them down in the video description so you can check them out later if you want to the first thing i do if i was starting completely over is i'd think about how technical i wanted to be there are so many different paths that you can take within analytics and some of them involve a high degree of technical skill and some of them don't require nearly as much technical skill in that vein i would consider whether i wanted to go the coding or the no code route personally i like a blend of working on highly technical issues and also having some time working more in the business communicating with the business more heavily because i like the technical aspect i would learn a programming language and specifically if i was completely starting from scratch i would focus on python as the language because it's such a good general purpose language i mentioned in last week's video that when i first was learning analytics i learned sas because that's what the company i was working at used i think sas is great and it may be the right solution if you know you want to go into health care or a medical related analytics role where you're much much more likely to use sas than any of the other languages since i'd have no prior experience with programming of any sort i would sign up for a data camp subscription and use that to build some basic skills it gives a good guide of hand-holding along the way early on and really helps you get comfortable and get real-time feedback without having to figure out an individualized path or wonder how to fix something if you're really not getting a certain aspect of how to program something i mentioned if i was going into healthcare i'd focus on sas i'd recommend that if you know there's a specific field you want to be in look at some job descriptions before you get started that's what i would do i'd look to see what was common on those job descriptions and that's where i'd focus my efforts looking for the highest payoff skills first if i wanted to get into an analytics role but wanted to go in no code route because i wasn't comfortable learning programming or it was something that i could do but i didn't really enjoy then i'd focus on learning another tool that's common in analytics i'd suggest learning tableau or power bi if you're going a no code route these can let you do a lot of things that programming can do though they're not quite as customizable unless you actually do then learn to code because both of them can work with different programming languages to help enhance the native capabilities that they have built in but that's not something you need to worry about right away that's something you could always add on later if you wanted to add that as an extra skill or improve your skills further within that application at the same time if i was starting over and didn't have a degree in math i would spend a lot of time focusing on learning the mathematical concepts that sit behind all of the analytics the data science that you might be getting into sure tools can do a lot of the math themselves but if you don't understand the concepts behind it you're much less likely to be consistently asking the right questions of the data so you may produce amazing analysis but it's not technically fundamentally sound and so you might get results that actually don't make sense that aren't good results or recommendations for the business at all as i'm building these skills i would focus on looking for chances to implement them how can i apply everything i'm learning to real world challenges how can i look at problems that businesses might actually be facing and use this knowledge i have to solve the problems to make a company more money to save a company money on something that they're doing to make the company more efficient this is the real added value that you're providing it's not just having the skills to analyze it's having the knowledge the skill set to analyze in terms that a company can then do something with even if i were picking a random set of data let's say i'm picking sports statistics this still can have a very business element to it we think of sports teams maybe more as entertainment but there's massive business behind it how could you look at sports statistics and do analysis on them that helped you learn something that would help the teams as a business uh to learn something and make a change in their business that's really what the basis of the movie money ball was it's how to use sports statistics in a way that benefit the business it's data analytics data science business analytics all rolled into the context of a sports team finally i'd start applying applying for internships if i were still in school applying for jobs looking for temp positions anything that let me really get experience doing all of this work in a business setting solving actual business problems taking my skills a step further like i said before learning skills just for the sake of learning skills doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of a career so if you're doing it just for fun you could skip the employment part of it but ultimately where people tend to see the most improvement is when they really take all of these skills and start fixing messy actual problems that need to be fixed moving beyond the theory which is very helpful when you're starting out but getting into the practical application that's ultimately where you're going to spend most of your time throughout your career if you're working in analytics or whatever field you're working in you're likely spending most of your time in application not in theory as part of finding a job i would focus a lot on my resume and linkedin and making sure that they're really up to date they're really strong they're really selling what i can do as an individual as a contributor into a business those are the steps i would take if i was learning data analytics completely from scratch there's a few other resources that you might find helpful if you are starting from scratch or you're fairly early on in your journey the first is i have an ebook called how to become a data analyst which goes into even more detail in each of these areas it goes through in even more specific concepts that you'll want to learn and some additional resources that are out there to learn them i also work one-on-one with people to coach them through this work help them create a more tailored path that fits more with their specific background with their specific goals of what makes the most sense beyond just the general steps you should take to learn analytics how does it really tailor to you and your unique situation i'll link to both of those resources down in the description in case you're interested in taking advantage of them if you like this video please consider giving it a thumbs up and sharing it thank you so much for watching you

Channel: The Career Force

Views: 48,202

Rating: 4.9717598 out of 5

Keywords: How to Learn Data Analytics, data analyst, starting over, career development, data analytics skills, the career force, how i'd start over, data analyst skills, data analytics careers, learn business analyst skills, learn data analyst skills, how to learn data analyst skills, data science, data scientist, machine learning

Id: dLOZshvgFYY

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020