My Path to Geospatial Analytics

It started with the appearance of an opportunity, and I seized it.

In the month between learning of the opportunity and the actual beginning of my employment as a geospatial analyst, I tried to learn what I could on my own so that I would be able to jump right in.

I have to say, I think it paid off.

I knew that I would be using Postgres with a PostGIS extension and QGIS, which I'd never touched before. So I installed it all and got to looking for learning opportunities.

I started with this PostGIS tutorial to learn the ideas behind spatial SQL. Not too bad, as I'm already familiar with the basics of SQL.

I then moved on to this QGIS tutorial.

I would be lying if I said I 100% completed either of them, but they gave me enough information that I was able to understand (mostly) how to use the programs and follow instructions I was given.

So much more of what I've learned has been hands-on, as I go experience.

I've learned the most applicable things simply through doing (and figuring out how to do) specific tasks.

While I haven't completed it, Spatial Thoughts has an Advanced QGIS playlist on YouTube, and it's been extremely helpful as well.

I know there are still so many things I haven't learned, but I feel very strongly that I have a good base to continue building on. For my purposes, it's serving me well, and I'm getting better every day.

Curious about what I've been up to with all this knowledge? This YouTube video was created to help non-technical users be able to use the maps that I created!