پن کیا گیا ٹویٹ
How I became a data specialist without a data degree:
I started my career as a volunteer math tutor, which landed me a job as an academic coach.
Before I went down my data path... I tried to become an official math teacher without a degree, and the answer was "You can't".
Even if I had the skill and could pass the test, they would play gatekeeper.
I had lots of kids saying that I was the best math tutor they ever had. I was getting through to special needs kids that nobody else had. And I could have owned that teacher math test that you "need a degree for".
So that sets the stage for a new avenue.
I had a caseload of 30 students, and noticed that the school was not taking advantage of their academic data. Everyone was looking up student info like grades and progress etc... manually one by one. So many clicks.
I realized that the data was there to enable the creation of some type of dashboard to view it all in one place... all I had to do was find the formulas to make it happen, step by step from raw data to the finished results I had in mind.
I pieced it together, and next thing I knew I had a tool that was saving me lots of time, showing my roster's performance all in one place.
Soon enough my boss asked me to make one for each coach at the branch / location. People loved it. Who doesn't like saving time?
I started hearing rumors about expanding my tool through the school, but after a while I got an offer from another school to be a full time data specialist, which I accepted.
Then skip some more story and now I am working for another school as a data specialist, and I love what I do.
Whether you own a company or work for one, you likely have some type of data that you can turn into a helpful tool that could give incredibly valuable insights, or that could save lots of time.
Build it, show it, and from there the word about what you can do will spread.
I have only ever seen one company that turned their nose up at a tool I built for them to streamline things, and I suspect it's because people didn't want me standing in their spotlight.
Other than that, when you bring a game changing tool into the light, you will shine!
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