It's been a little over two months since I realized that my passion is data analysis and storytelling. Since then, I've been learning what it takes to enter this world and working on building the foundations to be the best analyst possible.
One of the main recommendations I've seen for those of us looking to break into this industry is building a strong personal brand. I noticed that the most common way to do this is through LinkedIn, which was my initial idea. But, asking myself what I want to reflect, I realized I'd like to show the world my diverse range of interests: writing, competitive debate, and art.
The idea of making a website came up for two reasons: being able to fully customize this experience by integrating my portfolio, my writing, and my debate experiences; and exploring my artistic side through its design. But here came a small problem: I knew absolutely nothing about how to make a website.
The Newtonian Physics Method
When I took Newtonian physics in high school, I liked to study for exams in a particular way. Instead of reading the book, reviewing my notes, and then solving the problem guide from the easiest to the most complicated, I would start by trying to tackle the last exercise: always the hardest one.
At that point, completing the rest of the guide was easy, and a validation that no content to be evaluated was slipping past me. For me, that was the most efficient way to study: doing an exploratory analysis of what I knew and what I didn't, to only invest time in what I needed to reinforce.
Even years later, that's the way I like to approach new challenges. And in this exact way, I decided to approach the process of creating a website.
The Exploratory Analysis
The exploratory analysis was quite short in this case. Everything I knew could be summed up in two ideas: that most pages are programmed in HTML and that I needed to “host” my page somewhere. That sparked the whole research process that led me to successfully execute the first version of my little page.
For now, it's pretty simple. It has a home page with the elements I want to develop, a colorful version of my CV, and this, my first blog post. I still need to start building my portfolio and tell you about my experience in competitive debate. But regardless, I am proud of this new tool I acquired and the small step it represents towards what I want to achieve.