My First Case Study: Google Capstone Project 2 - Bellabeat

When I first reached the case study of the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate, I felt completely unprepared. The idea of working on a full project from start to finish seemed overwhelming. A big part of me wanted to put it off, thinking I should learn more before even attempting it. 

But after some reflection, I decided to just go for it whilst keeping a few key things in mind:

• It’s not going to be as good as I want it to be. And that’s okay. It’s my first time, so of course it won’t be perfect. The only way to get better is to actually do it, no matter how unready I feel.
• I’ll get to experience the full process. This was my first chance to work through an entire project on my own. Learning how to ask the right questions, make decisions, and problem-solve along the way are some hugely valuable skills which I can only gain through hands-on experience.

• I’ll learn more than I would from just following tutorials. Doing a case study forces me to figure things out instead of just passively watching someone else do it. Even if I struggle, I’ll come away from it having learnt so much more.

So, with that mindset, I just went for it. 

Here’s the link to my project: [Link]

The Process

Once I got started, I actually enjoyed every part of it—planning, cleaning the data, analysing, refining, and making sure it was well-presented in the end. But wow, it was slow.

Even though I felt like I was making progress every time I sat down to work, each step took much longer than expected. I had to remind myself to be patient. It’s my first time, so of course it’s going to take longer. But that also meant I was learning a lot, whether it was researching why my code wasn’t working or figuring out the best way to present my findings.

Some key details:

• Total time spent: 26 hours
  • This includes everything from exploring the dataset, deciding which tools to use, planning, coding, making visuals, writing up the business implications, and formatting everything to look somewhat polished.
• I chose to do it in R. I felt most comfortable with R after going through the Google course, so I wanted to apply it in a real project.
• I skipped Tableau for now. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I didn’t feel confident in my Tableau skills yet, so I decided to stick with R for visualisations. 

Next Steps

While working through the Google course, I realised that my maths and statistics knowledge are a little rusty. I used to really enjoy and excel at maths in school, but it’s been a decade since I last studied it. Since data analysis is so closely tied to math, I figured now would be a good time to refresh my statistical knowledge before diving deeper into SQL and Tableau.

I know it’s not always necessary to manually calculate probabilities and statistical formulas in real-world data analysis, but I want to understand what’s happening behind the scenes. Plus, I enjoy learning about it, so why not?

So, my plan is to do the Stanford Introduction to Statistics Course before moving on to other technical skills.

Final Note

Taking on this case study felt intimidating at first, but I’m so glad I pushed through. It wasn’t perfect, but that’s okay. This was about getting started, going through the full process, and learning along the way. I know that with each project, I’ll get better and faster, and that’s what really matters!