Data Analysis for Non Programmers has been an idea stuck in my mind since 2017 and after a long period of procrastination and ignorance, in July 2020 I announced on my Instagram that DANP is finally coming up.

I interviewed and talked to more than 70 people in two weeks.

Finally, 34 of us decided to come together and start learning from 1st August 2020.

It is a very interesting and diverse set of audiences and we all were quite excited from class 1. One major challenge was to accommodate people from different time zones so we all decided on for 5:30 PM in India when its morning in the US, Noon in Europe, and late evening in South East Asia.

Interestingly, I had given a simple and fun exercise for students before the first class begins: To draw as many charts as possible by hand on a paper. The goal was to let the creative muscles flex and give them the ability to think beyond a laptop screen on pen and paper. What they came up with was surprising and I was amazed.

My biggest focus is on building a strong foundation and I am keeping course curriculum quite fundamental and explain those concepts clearly so when the class gets over, students are ready with a strong base on which they can build further skills on their own.

We started the first class with a general discussion around Tall vs Wide data problem and gradually shifted it to why wide data poses many challenges and how it can be solved.

Second class revolved around basic SQL concepts. Inserting data into tables using Tableau Prep Beta (Tableau Prep 2020.2 cant write to databases yet). I assigned three activities to the students to keep them busy and them them practice throughout the week.

I generally assign the activities one level above from what they have already learned to keep them out of the comfort zone.

I specially want to thank my friend Nishant Dwivedi who is currently based in London and has volunteered to join the throughout the course as assistant teacher. His help has been immense in managing the whole course so far. 🖤 you Nishant.

Student Diary

Data Analysis for Non-Programmers kick started on 1st August 2020 with discussions around brief introduction of the course and the students. The pool of students is highly heterogeneous, therefore making the same a platform great experience and exposure.  Next followed the discussions around major types of data structure and concepts of the same. Mr Ashish, the instructor created a highly interactive and descriptive session, with not just limiting the session to agenda but discussing real life use cases. Following which basics around MySQL and Tableau were talked about, including but not limited to installation > creating a DB > data cleaning using Tableau, etc. As a part of learning and hands on experience, 3 activities were assigned to each student for week 01.

The course started on a highly informative and interactive note, curiously looking forward to the next three months with the great pool of students and the instructor himself.

Palak Khanna

Data Analyst

ToDo List for Next Week:

• Create a student progress dashboard and publish on Tableau Online

• Promote reading among students

• Talk to a couple of students who are lagging in progress

Cheers, Ashish.