Hi all,
First post here so apologies if I’ve done anything wrong, please let me know if I have 
I have been working through the business intelligence data analyst career path. The lesson/ quizzes I have felt confident with but these projects and portfolio projects seem way to hard and complicated, especially for a beginner like me. I am currently trying to start the us medical insurance costs portfolio project but I don’t even know where to start!
I was just wondering whether anyone has had the same experience and how they overcame it as I’m starting to lose motivation?
Totally understandable as it can seem overwhelming. Everyone feels like this at some point (trust me).
Is this the one where you use the csv module? Do you have a link to the project?
When you’re learning these coding concepts, do you take notes or write code examples for yourself so you understand the concepts? I know everyone learns differently, but for me, I always found it helpful if I wrote out (I went old school and hand wrote things down in a notebook, that way I could go back to it when stuck) what I was learning, so when I saw it in my own words it solidified what I was learning. (additionally, you can use Jupyter Notebook or Google Colab to write and execute Python code).
So, is it the data questions or the technical part–writing the code that has you stuck?
My best advice is to break the project down into smaller segments and go from there. Think about things you’d want to explore in the dataset (exploratory data analysis) and questions that may arise from that analysis–how many people are in each region, what is the mean and median of the charges, is there a difference between those, is there a diff in charges between the regions, are there more women or men in the dataset?, etc.
Also, search the forums here for how others have tackled this project to get some ideas.
You’ve got this!
Thanks Lisa for your reply!
This is the link to the portfolio project:
https://www.codecademy.com/paths/bi-data-analyst/tracks/dsf-portfolio-project-u-s-medical-insurance/modules/dsf-portfolio-project-u-s-medical-insurance/kanban_projects/us-medical-insurance-costs-portfolio-project
I do take hand wrote notes as well and like you say it is very handy to re-visit when stuck. I think it’s putting all of the pieces together to write my own block of code so more of the technical element.
Thanks that has given me some good direction, I will go about getting the answers to those areas first and look through the forums, for any more hints and tips.
It’s much appreciated!
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