Once she landed her dream job as a data analyst, Ponprom wanted to see her insights published. With help from Coursera, the University of Illinois, and Duke University, she got to see her name in print. Here’s her story:
After finishing my degree, I landed my dream job as a data analyst at Bloomberg in Singapore. I had big ambitions to move up in my career and publish influential financial insights – so I started exploring newer topics and acquiring new skills via Coursera.
To curate actionable financial insights for our clients, I needed to be able to navigate through a large amount of data and communicate ideas to a general audience using visual graphics. For that reason, I focused on data visualization courses. My first enrollment was Data Visualization from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I applied the skills I learned from that course to create a chart to help investors digest and discover investment opportunities.
Next, I completed Duke University’s Data Visualization and Communication with Tableau, which really introduced me to the vast possibilities of data visualization. I learned to generate world maps, word clouds, bar charts, etc. using Tableau. I continued taking other courses related to data analysis and visualization – including two courses in the Data Science Specialization from Johns Hopkins University – and in less than one year, my data analysis was published on Bloomberg.com! I have since collaborated on an FAQ about analyzing S&P 500 earnings and forecasts, for which I’m actually listed as a co-author.
The data analysis skills that I learned on Coursera have reshaped how I approach business problems. Now, I have a clearer framework to analyze my data and present the idea to a wider audience. I still have a long way to go, but with the flexibility and affordability of courses on Coursera, I’m confident that I will be able to achieve my career goals. I feel lucky to be able to experience education from the world’s most renowned universities, without trading off my career opportunities.