Doers and Thinkers of the World — Unite! [DMI End of Sem Reflection]

8 min readApr 30, 2019

We have come to the end of the semester — and as our prolific Slack, Medium, and Reddit accounts show — there is much to celebrate. Be it failures or success, every thing we have produced was an opportunity for learning and I think the class should be given a round of applause for their efforts.

Technical Skills

I’m also happy to report that in my journey of fear regarding data — there has been significant steps of improvement! From being unable to read data or make any charts, I’ve picked up basic understandings of Tableau, Excel’s Pivot Table, Data Wrapper and Visme, which is a world different from where I was at the start of the class. I had also explored far more data visualisation formats than I thought possible, and only wished there was more time to learn things like a treemap and a word cloud! I only wished that I was less afraid earlier so I could maximise the learning from everyone.

Not only that — I reaped some real quantifiable results too — what took me 3 days to learn a new tool (e.g. Tableau for my Starbucks visualisation) was truncated to 4 hours when I learnt a different aspect of the tool (e.g. Tableau line chart for Happiness). My ability to research and write was greatly improved too, depending on the nature of the article. Some long form pieces like the Environment one took much longer to conceptualise and research on — I sat on it for about 2 weeks, and writing took 3 days. On the other hand, for the shorter pieces, I definitely saw improvements in communication style, and a drop in time for research consolidation without compromising on writing quality. Perhaps I could consider a future in journalism after all? With all the deadlines I’ve hit! ;)

An Overview of the Learning I’ve Gleaned through the Different Topics

Really and sincerely though, thank you DMI for this experience of learning to step outside my comfort box into a space I could never dream of conquering, but now have.

In a bid to reflect on my class experience and the work that I have produced, I was inspired by Jie Qi who visualised her progress through a table.

You can find the table here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NVBI9NP-huGMjPzMhJWK56MenBzli6Sb

Reflecting on this was fun and I realised that I had indeed learnt a lot through this experience, despite my lacking and shaky start :’) Notably, I would like to highlight a few lessons that I had learned through the various avenues of exploration DMI had offered.

A Quick Thought on Data Visualisations + Reddit

Interestingly enough, while I had preferred my Starbucks visualisation in terms of how long it took for me to learn it and the blood, sweat and tears poured into it…. I discovered that my Meritocracy Reddit had actually generated the discourse that I was intending it too. Which was a pretty sweet result!

So next time you’re faced with a “data-driven” scenario do this: instead of looking for the answers the data provides, look for the questions it generates.
-Bill Pardi (Principal PM, Content Engineering + Data & Analytics at Microsoft)

Admittedly, my data visualisations showed a certain beginner finesse to them and there are definitely many more ways I could improve. Yet acknowledging all these weaknesses, I had endeavoured to try different formats and tools. Not only that, the topics that I had explored through my visualisations were ones meaningful to me and close to my heart, coming from a place where hard questions were asked! :’) An achievement in itself.

I did go from this to this, which is a win in my book!

Mindset Shift

The biggest thing that transformed by DMI experience was a mindset shift from a fixed mindset to a growth one and it is this personal development that I value.

For too long, I was mired in much apprehension and fear. But, writing these medium articles sprung a mindset shift.

I don’t quite know how it happened, but I’m thankful it did. It started perhaps from a place of purpose, truly owning the USP’s ethos, and making it my own (as this class intends to be aligned with).

To shape independent, adaptable thinkers and doers who will make an impact in the world.

As a Global Studies student, this line had always resonated with me. I believe that responsible and rigorous intellectual engagement is also action-oriented, and is what will help us solve the complex 21st century issues of today.

With the idea of advocacy, activism and action in mind, I decided that I shall no longer be caught in my own mental trap of lack, and actually use these data visualisation skills for a purpose. And what a difference it made :’)

Putting the advocacy in data changed the way I saw the stories that I told through the data, and pushed me to take this as an opportunity to expand my worldview, using a data-centric and rigorous research approach to develop stories that not only I care about, but I believe others should as well.

This started a chain of Medium pieces that I am personally very proud of; which includes, but is not limited to,

A Story on FDWs and how branching out Data Sources is essential to Research-based Advocacy Work
A Longform Piece on Keeping Stakeholders Accountable to Climate Action
Recommendations on Improving the Mental Health Landscape of Colleges

Even the piece on Luck, I could use an opportunity to encourage others to press on in their job search :)

These stories became not just for I, but for a We — standing for something far beyond what I could imagine I could do in a class.

Looking back, my DMI experience has indeed been framed by the values of Curiosity, Critical-thinking, Courage, and Engagement.

Curiosity — Adventurous in thought, pursuing a broad range of intellectual interests and ready to make connections across different domains.

I saw this through the many topics we took deep dives into that enabled a beautiful intersection of quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

Critical — Intellectually rigorous, deeply reflective and having a humility born of awareness of the limitations of our own knowledge.

This came through the process of understanding our data, reflecting on its limitations, and finding ways to ensure that we have communicated the landscape fairly with our visualisation. Intellectual humility also brought forth many opportunities for collaboration! Looking back, I can’t believe the collection of talents we had in the class. From Gale who always inspired with her reflections, to Darren who never fails to encourage with his resilience in the face of harsh critics, to Xin Yi who had a gift for making Excel look aesthetic and many more other expertises!

Here, I would like to give a big shout-out to Rong Yi who really taught me that learning took place out of the classroom. Thanks for making working with you so fun and it allowed me to see how our skill-sets could complement one another :) Girl is blessed with some data analytic hands!!

Courageous- Willing to consider differing points of view, unafraid to face challenges and to act upon ideas.

Looking back at the Slack channel and the many discussions that took place, I was very inspired by the learning attitudes of my fellow classmates who were always open to giving feedback and challenging one another to think through our process on visualising data. On a personal note, courage became a real learning lesson for me in this class and was perhaps most effectively demonstrated in my Environment piece. I had really wanted to include Rosling’s thoughts but always found the threads to be very disparate. But I pressed on and made it work.

In perhaps a moment of clarity, I had produced 200 words that I was most proud of and unashamedly (haha) quote myself here. After the semester, these paragraphs truly encapsulate my biggest takeaway of all the consultations, lessons, group work and independent work and why DMI is an important class in my undergraduate life :)

It is easy for stakeholders in power to dismiss perceptions. In our data-driven world, it seems like a no-brainer to prioritise fact over opinion, and especially so when these opinions seem dramatic. In the little red dot I live in, our pragmatic government carries a similar sentiment and is known for easily dismissing what they perceive as opinions. But, is perception and fact really mutually exclusive?
In my own opinion, and perhaps respectfully diverging from Rosling, I do believe some drama, some emotion, some value judgement added to to our worldview is a good thing. This is especially so for such a long stagnant and un-moving issue such as climate change which suffers from the incredible tragedy of the commons (with global implications).
Consequently, the relatively little action in both immediacy and scale in spite of the vast amounts of data available on the warming of the planet, many other significant correlations with other environmental effects, and the global scientific consensus (97% of the scientific community) on the reality of climate change reveals one thing: fact has not led to action.
Drama, emotion, value judgements… These seemingly irrational perceptions that colour our worldview are here because we care enough about the world. Without fact, perception is unmoored and potentially dangerous. Without perception, fact is without hope or drive for change. But the intersections between perception and reality? That’s where the magic is.

Engaged — Extends the frontiers of knowledge in energetic and creative ways, prepared to navigate and help shape a complex world in a responsible way.

In most of my medium articles and topical explorations, I sought to do exactly this. Impact became not just conventional engagement metrics like likes, but was nuanced with a more moral imperative — to make a difference through my research on global and local issues.

At the beginning of the class, I was not sure how I would make it through. But as the old adage goes, “it always seems impossible until it is done.” And boy have we achieved far beyond what we’ve set out to do!

Thank you Dr. Burke, Rong Yi, and Joanna for your unending kindness through this semester and this class, it has been much appreciated. :’) I’ve learnt much from you all!

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