Temple University Analytics Challenge
During the Fall 2015 I participated in the 2nd Annual Fox Analytic Challenge. The challenge goals were sense of big data through visualization. Visualization is a key component of data analytics, and experts cite visualization. Students worked in teams to analyze large sets of data from three large companies; Merck, Lockheed Martin, and NBC Universal. Teams had the option to choose from the three challenges and create a visualization to the question at hand. Over a three month period I gained vast knowledge of new visualization tools. Some of these included tools such as CartoDB and PiktoChart. Although the the data provided by Merck included over 2000 employee records, I was able to analyze all the data and provide meaningful feedback.
The experience I gained from participating in this challenge has prepared me for handling data in a real-world sense. Prior to this competition, large data was often intimidating and not an area of interest. However, after the challenge I feel confident in my ability to analyze data and provide information that would be useful to my employer.