Charts and Excel

Data analytics, simply put, is the process of obtaining value from data. The value might be reflective or for forecasting, depending on the use case of the data being analyzed. Data analytics is one of the courses I am taking this semester for my executive MBA course at the Lagos Business School. Data analytics is not a particularly hard course to understand, but teaching skills and the student’s level of assimilation will determine how easy the students find the course.
Data analytics has a branch called statistics. Statistics was not my favorite part of mathematics while I was in secondary school. However, with the help of my teacher, I was able to learn and pass this bit.

We have a second facilitator, Dr. Okoye, taking us on the data analytics journey. His approach to teaching is different from that of Prof. Adi’s, even though both used business scenarios as classwork and exercises. I find it difficult to understand a subject if I cannot relate it to the regular daily things I come across. The ability to explain the most complex of things using everyday examples helps me with my learning process. This is what I have come to realize over the years. For a better learning experience, I have learned to be creative with matching what is being thought to real-life experience. If I can’t find a match, then there is a glitch somewhere, and understanding becomes a problem. For situations like this, I believe my brain resorts to memorizing or cramming, which isn’t the point of going to business school.

Another part of the data analytics is the use of Microsoft Excel, which is the fun part for me. I use Excel for the basic assignments and pick up some things along the way, but this course has got me interested in other use cases for Excel. We were still getting used to the Excel “magic” when Dr. Okoye mentioned that for data analytics, some business schools made use of Python programming to teach. This sounded fun, as I am technology inclined, but we are still learning the use of Excel; please do not scare us with Python programming.

For the data analytics course, my learning style is to try as many exercises as possible, check online, especially YouTube, for similar examples, and learn from other resources available. This way, I can learn from different teaching methods and also find a way to relate them to my daily business engagements. For someone with a boss who likes dealing with quantitative analysis with little or no qualitative analysis, data analytics will help me with better communication.