My Tableau Student Ambassador Experience – the 2nd Year!

Posted on: October 6, 2022

Last Updated on: October 14th, 2023

Post Category: Student Experience

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I was honoured to be a Tableau Student Ambassador for a second year.

And this is another blog post highlighting my experience as a Student Ambassador.

If you are a new reader and would like more context/information about the Tableau Ambassador program and my first-year experience in the program, you can read about it here.

So… my experience!

My second year as a Student Ambassador was not as involved as the first, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

As a returning Student Ambassador, my role was to support the newer ones. During the first couple of weeks of the 2021/2022 program, I got the opportunity to talk about my previous experience being an Ambassador and my tips on how to make the most out of the program. Throughout the program, I also got to meet many of the new Student Ambassadors, and I got to offer them advice for running on-campus events, through one-on-one calls.

And once again, I got a lot of free merch! For the Ambassador onboarding, all the Ambassadors were given a Tableau Ambassador hoodie and a headphone stand. And ahead of the 2021 Tableau conference, we got heaps of crazy merch like a Tableau-branded Jenga set and Jigsaw puzzle.

To be honest, I lost count of the amount of packages I received from Tableau – I believe I received three at most… but there was a lot.

Among the freebies I got from Tableau, I also got to sit my Tableau Certified Data Analyst exam (originally $250 USD) for free. During the first couple of weeks of Uni this year, I got to study for the Tableau Certified Data Analyst exam, score a passing grade and publish a blog post about my exam experience.

To this day, my Tableau Certified Data Analyst exam experience blog post has received the most views on my personal blog, and I am proud to have helped some people in the community with their exam preparation.

AND finally, because of my earlier contributions to the program and the student community, I was asked to organise another hackathon with The Data School, and I was invited to give a workshop for students taking a research course at, my very own, UNSW.

Ultimately, it was an awesome experience organising the hackathon in an in-person setting, seeing all of the hard work put in by the students and meeting some of the Data Schoolers.

And for the workshop, I got to walk students through Tableau Desktop using a real-life case study, while synthesising everything I’ve learnt about the software and visual best practices. It was my last workshop and a bittersweet experience.

What’s next?

During the remainder of this year, I plan to publish a set of resources for University students in an earlier stage of their career, who are interested in building their Tableau skills and/or a career in data analytics. It will leverage the two years of experience I have had with Tableau, and it shall be named the ‘Tableau for Students’ guide.

It has been a real pleasure being part of the Tableau Ambassador program – making an impact on the student community, building my teaching and technical skills, and learning concepts that have helped me secure a graduate role offer.

I am hoping that the resources I create will be useful for newer University students, and I hope to further teach data skills later in my career.

Meeting people from the Tableau Community, and getting involved in various Community projects/initiatives, has allowed me to see how supportive the data analytics community actually is – and I hope to advance that type of culture with my followers in the future.

For students who are interested in becoming a student ambassador

The Tableau Student Ambassadorship is easily one of the highlights of my personal development journey at University.

It’s definitely a good opportunity to apply for if you are willing to put in the effort.

The program gives Student Ambassadors a lot of freedom and autonomy (and merch), with little oversight from the Academic Programs team, so the amount of work you put in is on you. But the more you put in, the more you will gain.

From my experience, applications for the Tableau Ambassador program open every year around July – and stay open for a few weeks. And Student Ambassadors will need to be a student for the duration of the year-long program.

Please have a read through the two blog posts recapping my experience (for my first year and second year), or reach out to me if you would like more insight.