Rockborne brings it all together:

I’ve always been a numbers person, so I chose to study Maths at university and that’s where I first came across working with data.

I had a module in my third year where I had to complete a data analysis task and it made me consider this as a career path. After graduating I did the usual job hunting, but I wanted to find a graduate scheme that would train me with the right skills instead of assuming I would already have them all. So when I came across Rockborne, I thought it would be a good opportunity and was surprised at how quick the process was.

Since being at Rockborne I can say I have many more skills than I did before starting this role. My degree obviously taught me a lot, but Rockborne gave me a higher level of technical skills while also allowing me time to work on soft skills. For example, I was able to work as a team and use programming languages such as MATLAB while at university, but since starting my role here, I’ve learnt languages such as Python, SQL, I’ve used visualisation tools like Power BI and Tableau, and I’ve had the opportunity to work on my presentation and consulting skills.

When it came to the client site, I found the consulting skills the most useful from training. As a Graduate Data Consultant, I realised that not only does my confidence and presentation matter, but knowing how to manage stakeholders is also really important and I hadn’t come across a situation where I needed all of those things before. Rockborne gave us the necessary guidance to prepare us for the client site so that when I started my placement, I didn’t feel out of my comfort zone.

I worked on a dashboard migration project while I was on my placement. It meant using a new system I hadn’t worked with before, collecting all the necessary data and sending it to BigQuery, and then using the data from BigQuery in Power BI to recreate the dashboards. It was a bit overwhelming at first since I didn’t know the terminology for the system I was working with, but once I had that figured out it was smooth sailing from there. I had also never used BigQuery before but it uses SQL, so I had the chance to familiarise myself with that language again as I had to rewrite some Python scripts. I learnt that even though the same language is used, BigQuery actually has more functions than SQL does – one of the Python statements included indexing and I realised there isn’t a simple way to do that in SQL, however, BigQuery has a function for this which made things so much easier.

Overall, I’ve learnt a lot during my time at Rockborne and I’ll continue to learn more when I’m on the client site. I think a training program like this is quite handy for new graduates because it can be overwhelming jumping straight into the working world and is expected to know everything. I found this role to be a good middle ground between learning and working which can be ideal for those just starting their career. And because you are starting your career, even if you think you have silly questions, just ask them. Everyone will understand you’re at the beginning of your path and will probably be able to relate to it, literally everyone has been there! So don’t be worried about the questions, we all need a helping hand!

Find out more about the Rockborne graduate programme here.