How One Alum Applied Education Experience Toward a Career In Data Analytics

After 13 years in education, Christina Milliken was looking for a change. Amid a nationwide teacher shortage and increased demands on school district personnel, she began exploring alternate career paths.

Milliken’s decision to change careers combined with her prior experience working with data inspired her to pursue data analytics.

“I worked mostly in special education, and as part of that job, I did a lot of data collection and presentation,” recalls Milliken. “And so I just kind of realized that was a part of my job I enjoyed.”

When she first started exploring options to learn data analytics, she encountered a wide range of fully online, self-led courses. She also heard from current data analytics professionals on online forums who recommended self-study resources. However, she explored these programs and found them limited in scope. Wanting a more comprehensive curriculum with a support system for her learning journey, Milliken ultimately decided to pursue the Fullstack Academy Data Analytics Bootcamp.

“I felt like I wanted to have someone there that was guiding me,” she states. “I thought [my instructor] was amazing. She had an answer to all of my questions and was very flexible and available to meet. I really liked her feedback, too.”

Another major differentiator between self-learning and bootcamp training is the use of top data technology. Bootcamp instruction centered on the programming language SQL, for example, offers real-world insight into how the tool is used professionally. Milliken found SQL challenging, but credits extracurricular projects recommended by her instructor with helping her to learn it—and to love it!

The curriculum also gave her the context to recognize which skills and concepts she’d grasped already without fully realizing it. Using Tableau in class, for instance, taught Milliken how to optimize, expand, and seamlessly visualize the data dashboards and reports she relied on in her current role. With that understanding, she learned not only how to build data visualizations from scratch, but how to improve existing reports.

Now, she’s applying that report-building knowledge and experience toward her own data analyst portfolio:

“I've been working on some of those to have as my portfolio, and that's been a lot of fun for me. I've also been doing some volunteer work for a start-up nonprofit; trying to help them with their data organization and build dashboards to show some different insights.”

Graduating from bootcamp with a full workload was no small feat. Milliken shares how she made it work for her and offers her advice for prospective students:

“I would just say to know ahead of time that you have to put the work into it. But if you keep doing it and if you keep asking questions when you're not quite sure what to do, you'll be able to get through it.”

Looking to switch careers and want to learn how your current skills can translate into tech success? Connect with a Student Advisor when you apply today.