Wes Brooks on Why Dataquest is Better than a $50,000 degree
Wes Brooks, Data Scientist
Wes Brooks had always understood that data was key to success in business. “Early in my career, I built other businesses and my own with a data-driven mindset.”
This led Wes to a role at Cornett, an advertising agency where he worked on marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies.
“They hired me to apply that same data-driven business building approach to their clients’ businesses.”
While there, Wes encountered the challenges of dealing with data from disparate sources.
Discovering Dataquest
“We built a data lake for one of our clients that unified many different sources. It allowed us to summarize their data in a single dashboard for their marketing team. Dataquest gave me a curriculum that covered everything I needed to learn, and a well-crafted route to get me there.”
It took a team of engineers using expensive software to pull off this build, but once it was built, Brooks still had to rely on a team of developers because he didn’t have experience analyzing raw data.
“This quickly became both time consuming and expensive. I decided that I needed to start learning data science for myself.”
At first, he relied on individual books and courses and tried to craft his own curriculum. All of the options overwhelmed him. He tried some MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). They were just videos of lectures, which Brooks felt took too long to watch and were unideal for learning the details.
Learning the Dataquest Way
Brooks explains how Dataquest took away the guesswork of trying to learn by himself. “It gave me a curriculum that covered everything I needed to learn, and a well-crafted route to get there. Dataquest teaches me everything I need to know without the $50,000 degree. It’s self-paced, and I love learning by doing.”
Brooks’s hard work has paid off. He is about to join Cru, an international faith-based non-profit.
“I’ll be working with all kinds of data. Web analytics, donations and more. I’m excited to jump full-time into a data science role and apply my skills for a cause I believe in.”
When asked whether he would recommend Dataquest, Wes does not hesitate. “Absolutely. It’s affordable and has everything you need to know, combined with guided real-time help.”