Meet Alex. University Wasn't for Me – But Data Analytics Was

After making the difficult decision to leave university, I felt a bit lost and out of touch with the job market. I decided to pursue data analytics as it seemed to match my skill set well, combining technical and problem-solving abilities with communication skills. The Curious Academy bootcamp looked like an excellent opportunity to build my technical knowledge in this area and regain confidence for the job market.

The Learning Experience

We had three hours of teaching each morning, which gave me the chance to work with others and develop teamwork and communication skills. Learning alongside people who were in a similar position to me, while also being able to learn from those who already had some experience in data analytics, was really helpful.

I dedicated my afternoons to using the space provided at The Curious Lounge to complete individual learning on the DataCamp platform, where I continued to build upon the knowledge of spreadsheets, SQL, and Tableau we'd covered in the morning group sessions. One of the most valuable aspects of the course was using this space to work alongside like-minded people in similar situations. The relationships I formed really allowed me to grow my skills alongside others and, importantly, give and receive support throughout the challenging recruitment process.

Overcoming Challenges

The biggest challenge I faced during the bootcamp was finding and using the right dataset for my final project. I'd initially had the idea to do a report on how news consumption changed for different groups of individuals in the UK before and after COVID, but my main difficulty when pulling the dataset from OFCOM was wrangling the huge amount of data. Although this process overshadowed any insights I found, it was a hugely useful experience in understanding my data and going through the process of dealing with a large and difficult dataset. This experience proved very beneficial when I discussed it in my interviews.

Landing the Role

Through The Curious Academy, I had the opportunity to meet with Powerforce, a local field marketing agency, to hear more about their company and how they use data in their industry. We presented some data we'd prepared to them, which led to an interview for a Data and Reporting Analyst position with their new Neste partnership. I'm pleased to say I secured the role and am very much enjoying my first few weeks in this new career! It's great to put all the skills and tools I learned at the bootcamp to use in a real business scenario.

I'm genuinely grateful for my time at The Curious Academy - the skills, confidence, and opportunities I gained there have set me up brilliantly to begin what I'm excited to be my career in data analytics.