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After spending the last week working my way slowly through the fifth module of this course, I realized that now is a good time to begin writing about my experiences within this course! Here is what I learned in module 5:
Sorting
Filtering
Converting data (such as CONCAT)
VLOOKUP
JOINS
COUNT
Arithmetic in sheets and Big Query
Subqueries (WITH)
Creating temporary tables
Syntax specifics
Week 1
In week 1, I was introduced to sorting and filtering data. In Sheets, I learned how to write formulas or use the data tab to sort data. I had no idea there were different ways to sort data! When I learned that sort range will rearrange your column without changing the other columns in the sheet, that made me nervous. I could see how some big errors could be made by someone who was not aware whether they were sorting range or sorting the entire sheet. Handling the sort function was challenging as well, this was my first encounter with formulas that included column numbers and TRUE/FALSE within the formula.
The SORT command in SQL made sense to me right away, but it did make me wonder about how challenging it may be to have numerous sort and order by conditions. As the module moved on, some of these commands got more complex and really started to challenge me! One of my biggest challenges in week one was actually when they asked us to make a temporary table from a public dataset in our own project in Big Query. It took me four tries before I realized that although I was editing what would happen when I ran the query- I was never actually running it! So my dataset was never showing up within my own project. That was a real head scratcher.
Week 2
In this “week” I learned about converting data- changing using units of measurement, and using functions such as CONCAT. They also showed me conditional formatting, data validation, and combining multiple datasets. They also gave me some tips about how to get unstuck when I am feeling stuck on running a query! Which I found to be a good addition to the course, I personally already have those skills from my graduate education.
Although each of these skills are manageable on their own, what I found to be the most tricky this week was that my different requests were starting to stack onto each other. I understand how to use CONCAT, but what if you need to combine it with average, pulling only certain columns, and ordering and sorting your results? The course did a great job providing me with multiple hands on exercises, but it definitely took me longer to get through them than it did in the earlier modules of the course.
Week 3
Week 3 is where it really hit me that this is a challenging career/skill to learn. It started out right away by going extensively over the VLOOKUP function. I found it challenging to get my head around the syntax, because just as I was getting it they then did a VLOOKUP function that pulled from two different sheets within a document and that kind of blew my mind! Those kind of functions just look more complicated than they really are because you start adding ‘$’ and ‘!’.
Next I moved onto JOINS and COUNT. My mind was blown again! Just as I felt like I was getting the hang of the whole SEARCH FROM WHERE structure, they turned it on its head! An extra challenging thing that I encountered is that for whatever reason, I have a really hard time getting Big Query to recognize full table names. In the course examples they will sometimes have ‘ ‘ around them, and sometimes not. Sometimes between the dataset and the table name there is a period, other times a colon. And I have not figured out why it is different each time! Even if I copy the table name right off of it’s own details page, I will often get “unexpected literal string” errors. So figuring out just how to get the syntax to work on these was challenging.
Fortunately, I found that at least the concept of JOINS made sense to me, because they provided very helpful Venn Diagrams. The COUNT function seems pretty useful to me, I feel as though I could use it to investigate certain things about a dataset before I try to use it.
Finally, week 3 threw subqueries at me. This was similar to JOINS, in a way. That did not make it any less tricky! Towards the end of the module there was a query with a subquery that the course had asked me to write in Big Query- and they had literally given me exactly what to type. So I decided to type it out myself, so I could think about each element as I typed it. As it turns out, I spent twenty minutes just going back and forth between the one they gave me and mine, before the error message cleared and the query could run. I had to copy and paste their query and mine into a word document one on top of the other in order to spot the things I was doing wrong. Phew!
Week 4
By the time I got to week 4, I was feeling a little burned out because I had a migraine and it had been a pretty long week at work. Fortunately, this one was not actually very complex. It mostly went through doing basic arithmetic in sheets and SQL, such as adding and dividing. At the very end it did get into temporary tables, but I was able to copy a lot of the information that they gave me into word documents to refer to in the future. It had me do some hands on work with temporary tables, but it was guided well and I did not feel like my brain had to strain as hard as it had before.
Moving Forward
Module 5 was by far the most difficult one I have encountered so far. At times throughout this module, I had to stop and question to myself “can I really do this?”. Fortunately, the community I am building on Tik Tok and LinkedIn is full of supportive individuals, and many of them have voiced how they work in the field and still have to look things up all the time! I cannot expect myself to flawlessly learn this entire language and career in just a few short weeks. I am excited to keep moving forward and see where else the course takes me.
I have also, admittedly, slowed myself down a little in my course progress by taking on these extra elements. Yesterday all of my time was spent on making Tik Tok videos to show people what the course looks like, uploading my notes to GitHub, and building this website and writing blog posts. I did not get to even look at the course for myself! I am so thankful that I have this community that has helped me expand to these other important resources- but it does mean I do not move as quickly as I would otherwise!
Life is all about finding a balance. As much as I am a go-getter and I love to learn, over the years I have also learned to make peace with the balances I must strike within my life. Thank you for reading, and supporting me on this journey.
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