My Journey through the Accenture North America Virtual Internship on Forage
I recently completed the Accenture North America Data Analytics Virtual Internship on Forage — a job simulation platform designed to help build real-life skills for real-life roles. My motivation was to translate my theoretical knowledge of data analytics into a practical experience to solve a real world business challenge. In this post, I’ll share my insights and journey through the program.
The Accenture North America’s data analytics virtual internship was structured into four distinct tasks, each providing a unique perspective on the application of data analytics skills:
Task 1: Project Understanding
The main objective of this task is to:
- Understand the client and business problem at hand.
- Identify the requirements that need to be delivered for this project.
- Identify which tasks I should focus on as a Data Analyst.
From the information gathered I’ll be working with social buzz.
Social buzz is a fast-growing technology company that has reached over 500 million active users each month since the past 5 years. The project with Social buzz revolves around proving them with data driven insights to help their manage their growth and scale effectively.
The primary objectives include:
- An audit of Social buzz’s big data practice
- Recommendations for a successful IPO
- Analysis to find Social Buzz’s top 5 most popular categories of content
Task 2: Data Modeling and Cleaning
The client present 3 datasets — Reaction , content and reaction types which required cleaning.
Data cleaning
To clean these datasets I :
- I removed rows that have values which are missing,
- I changed the data type of some values within a column
- Ensured all columns were in proper case using the PROPER function, no trailing spaces with the TRIM function and non-printable characters with the CLEAN function
- I removed columns which are not relevant to this task. E.g I removed the URL column because it doesn’t provide a quantitative measurement for categories which we’re trying to discover.
Data modelling
Data modelling shows the connection between each one dataset using links — a common identifier between data points that help us connect them together.
I created a final dataset by merging the three tables together. Here, I used the reaction table as your base table, then joined the relevant columns from from the content dataset, and then the reaction types dataset. I did this using VLOOKUP
=VLOOKUP(B2,Content.csv!$B$2:$D$1001,3,FALSE)=VLOOKUP(B2,Content.csv!$B$2:$D$1001,2,FALSE)
Task 3: Data Visualization and Storytelling
With the final dataset, I extracted meaningful insights from the data. I Used pivot tables and created a dynamic dashboard in Microsoft Excel, I visually represented the top five content categories, unique categories, and monthly post counts for Social Buzz.
Task 4: Presentation to the Client
The final task involved making a presentation to the client. I created a 10-minute video presentation using PowerPoint, effectively communicating data-driven insights and strategic recommendations to address Social Buzz’s growth and scaling challenges. The video can be accessed here
In conclusion
The Accenture North America Data Analytics Virtual Internship on Forage provided a wonderful experience, enabling me to apply my knowledge to real-world scenario. The hands-on tasks, ranging from data cleaning to visualization and client presentation, enhanced my skills and showcased the practical applications of data analytics in solving business problems.
This internship has not only equipped me with technical proficiency but also enhanced my ability to communicate my findings effectively.
Thank you for joining me on this journey! Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter, and GitHub
