Creative Data Academy - My Life Changing Experience

Last month I was having a mental breakdown, wanted to leave university, go home and just give up - the only successful summer job application I had was a housekeeping one, which, although there is no shame in, doesn’t excite me quite as much as an internship would. Today I believed in myself and have been contacted five times about graduate jobs since 9am this morning. It’s not often that such a big change happens, is it? Not for me, at least. I am usually settling for the “maybe I’m just not good enough” mindset which, let’s face it, is something we’ve all felt.

This time last week I was nervously anticipating the start of The IDM’s Creative Data Academy course in Edinburgh. I’d earned my place on it. How? I have no idea! The anxiety I felt was so great that I was seriously considering not going - I probably wouldn’t be good enough for it, I felt.

Day 1

I was running on nervous energy - I think I’d only had a few strawberries that morning. Not knowing what to expect I was pleasantly surprised about how interesting I found the talks - also to do with the fact that the speakers were incredibly engaging and interesting!

When the end of the day came and we were all exhausted - we hadn’t realised just how hard we’d worked until we left! It was a strange feeling - the work didn’t feel like work, but it had taught me more than any day at University had.

That evening was the welcome meal at Pancho Villas, Edinburgh. There was the inevitable small talk and I was trying to crack a few ‘so-not-funny’ jokes here and there, which seemed to make people laugh, but still I had the overriding feeling that I was still just not as good as anybody sitting around me.

Day 2

The first speakers of the day were employees of Mediacom, Owen Buttolph and Andriana Argyropoulou, who worked in the Business Analysis department. As soon as they started to talk I knew that this was going to be something that I could relate to. Not only could I relate to it but I ACTUALLY really enjoyed it.

We were put into small groups of six and instructed to model a rough representation of the recorded sales of a well-known juice drink through given variables from the data collected. This is something that I’d learnt to do at University and so I was one of the few who were well versed in this kind of exercise. I loved it. I knew part-way through that exercise that THIS is what I want to do. The end of the activity left me wanting to keep investigating the data and exploring any other variables - even today, a few days after, in Tesco, I was mulling over a chewing gum purchase, I was thinking about all the variables and the consumer choice - should I go with a 5x pack of 10 which was on sale or a 60-piece pack of another flavour. I started to envision the graphs and think about what decisions the average customer would make - THIS is what I want to do!!

That afternoon we had three sessions run by Robin Huggins of MBN Solutions. The first session was CV help, ‘The Dos and Don’ts’. Then came Interview skills, followed by Networking. We learnt a whole range of skills, from the basic layout of a CV to the social faux pas of a bad handshake - it’s all in the eye-contact! There were so many Instagram-worthy quotations from those sessions (however, I did not succumb to the temptation to post anything!) but the one that stood out for me was “Never be afraid to be you - you should be proud to be you.” Now, I’d seen posts of Facebook saying pretty much the same thing but this time I actually FELT something. Robin Huggins made me feel like I was worth something more than just a number or a statistic of Depression sufferers. I felt like I could be myself and actually get a job that I wanted to do. I felt that there was life after University and that I, for the first time ever, wanted to graduate and live my life because incredible things could happen!

That day changed me as a person - I want to fight through my struggles and live a normal, happy and healthy life with a career in Data Analytics and never to feel that I am not good enough.

Thank you to all of the organisers of the event and the speakers, particularly Owen Buttolph and Robin Huggins.