STA Blog

Thang Truong

Thang Truong

Week 28 Thang Truong

By

Week 28 

Project: Data Visualization Tool (Continue)

Started on: Sep 14, 2023

Staff Guidance: Stacy

Description:

Continuing from last week’s progress, I explored again all of the columns and rows with scatterplot and bar graphs.

There are three rows that are important in this dataset:

  1. Graduate Advising Commitment Load (The workload and commitment that people commit to different committees)
  2. Total Committees (total number of committees people commit)
  3. Count of the dataset (how many people actually record their data)

There are different columns that are important:

  1. Gender
  2. Ethnicity
  3. College
  4. Department
  5. Department Size
  6. Tenure

 

Some insights that I had: 

  • On average, the medium department size has more committee total and more committee service followed by small and at last large even though large has the most committees in total. The surprising thing for me is that even though Small has the least committee total it has more committee service on average. 
  • It suggests that in small department sizes, people tend to take up more work and work for longer for committees. 
  • In studying each college for each department size
    • In large dept size, the College of Education has the most committee service even though the College of Natural Science has the most committee totals. 
    • In medium, the Red Mccombs department on average has the most CS even though the College of Liberal Art has the most CT in total. 
    • In small and large department sizes, Jackso School of Geosciences comes out on top in small and second in large for the most committee service hours even though the committee total is very small. -> Suggesting that these people work really hard and have a lot of commitment. 
  • Professor has more committees in total however on average, associate professor has more committees and more committee service of 8.97 and 2.79. respectively. 

 

Actually, when I look back at this insight is wrong since I had department size but I paired it with college instead of department.

  • In small and large department sizes, Jackso School of Geosciences comes out on top in small and second in large for the most committee service hours even though the committee total is very small. -> Suggesting that these people work really hard and have a lot of commitment.
  • Therefore, we need to use department size and department college

 

The new graphics that paired the committee service workload and graduate advising workload.

 

The old graphics that used only Committee Service Workload

Week 27 – First Week Back

By

Week 27

Project 1: Master of Arts in Econ (Broken Links)

Started on: Sep 7, 2023

Completed on: Sep 7, 2023

Description:

For this project, I need to go to the updated website and convert any links that are linked to live-ma-eco to ma-eco. I am very happy that this website that I worked on last December has been published. The old website looks very plain, and this website breathes a whole new vibe to the Department of Economics. Therefore, I am just excited to see how the new website is finally live. This project seems simple enough, but I need to go through each different page and check for every single link. It is a little bit of work here and there, but I completed it in a couple of hours.

Project 2: Data Visualization Project

Started on: Sep 7, 2023

Staff Guidance: Stacy

Description:

This project is very interesting. I was given a dataset on the faculty members at UT Austin and needed to visualize with different charts and graphs to see the distribution of an average of committees that faculties were on. This is a classic data visualization project that involved me exploring the dataset and building various beautiful charts to explain and explore the data. I used Tableau for this visualization. I need to poke around to see different things in the tools and create a narrative for the dataset. Overall, it is a really fun project.

Training: Tableau – Data Visualization Tool

Started on: Sep 8,2023

Description:

I got some training with Tableau where I got to build bar charts that display different data relating to the dataset on sales. The graph explains the sales for each representative and in each region. I find that working in Tableau is very easy and super intuitive. I love how Tableau simplifies the data visualization task and helps craft good visually appealing storytelling if the data analysts utilize it in their own interest.

 

This is another graph on a different dataset. The dataset is about unemployment by gender and age groups throughout the years. This is the area chart that shows the unemployment sum throughout year by each age group and with gender filter.

 

 

Welcome Back Blog Post

By

BACK AT LAITS 

Hi y’all, I am back and could not be more excited. This summer has been one of the best summers of my life.  Life update in short: Travelled to 2 new countries and 3 new cities. Eat countless delicious dishes. Finished an internship and a job. Spend countless quality time with family. A well-spent summer indeed.

  • I started off this summer with a mission trip to the Philippines where I got to see the beautiful country with the nicest and friendliest people I have seen. I also have a chance to see what God did in this country with so many community outreach and worship sessions. After the mission trip, I went back to Vietnam and connected back with my family. It was really sweet to see how everything did not change so much, and everyone was there for you, waiting and supporting you all the way.
  • In Vietnam, I did a remote internship with Claudius Scholar, a start-up in the AI and publisher industry. I helped them engineer the front-end application and spearheaded the main design framework that they could build on top of it. In this role, I was basically the UI/UX designer and Front-end developer where I got to propose my sketch in Figma and implement my outline in Bootstrap and Javascript. I also learned so much about backend development with Django. It was truly a learning experience because I had a chance to witness where the data is stored and transferred from the back to the front. The work that I did at LAITS really strengthened my front-end engineering skill that I felt more confident going into this job.
  • Also, in Vietnam, I had a remote job with UT for the Discovery to Impact Program. In this program, I researched and drafted different sections in a profile template so that it saves time for the researcher to examine and submit. Researching different scientists and professors is a very interesting task. I had an opportunity to know so many cool and talented researchers along the way in so many industries, ranging from medicine and robotics to rockets and biochemistry. There are a ton of UT labs, spearheaded and managed by those cool scientists, whose lab members work diligently to pursue scientific breakthroughs.
  • Reading up to this line, you may ask yourself: Where is the second country I visited? Did I forget? Oh no, I remembered. When I went back to Vietnam last summer, I did not have a lot of moments when I could spend traveling with my family. (It was because my sister needed to study to graduate senior in high school. Everyone is stressed, but she turned out just fine). Therefore, this summer, I and my sister decided to plan out our travel to visit different cities in Vietnam. So one week after we planned, we packed our suitcases and luggage and off, we went. That week was filled with so many happy and sweet moments. The moments turned into core memories and made my summer. Every day was just full of joy, laughter, and curiosity about what we wanted to do next. Then one month after the trip, we decided to go out of the country, so we looked for a cheap tourist trip. And again, off we went to Korea. Korea is definitely one of the most beautiful countries I have seen. The road and the structure are very similar to America. In just 4 days and 9 meals, we ate kimchi as a side dish for 8 of them. It was good, but when I went back to Vietnam, I did not want to see kimchi for a while.
  • All and all, I was very happy that I went and saw so much during the summer. I also learned and re-learned a lot during the internship that I had. It was a very productive but also heart-warming summer for me.
  • Looking into this semester, I hope to hone my skills more in the Data Science track. All the classes that I take this semester are related to that area, so I am super excited to see how I can do and learn more in class and outside of class. I also added another major Economics because I want to be more prepared with my statistical background. I am also interested in Finance area so maybe I will end up as Business Analyst or Financial Analyst or Data Analyst in general. Who knows? I will let God decides the rest, but for now, I will keep learning and acquiring skills for that Data Science area.

See you later post – Thang Truong

By

Hello and See y’all laits-ter!

 Xin chào và Hẹn gặp lại!

Sophomore has been one of the best year of my life for a lot of reasons.

  1. I travelled to so many places and tried out so many good food for the first time. I went to California visiting my brother at Berkeley and tried out so many Vietnamese restaurants. I visited my sister at TCU and tasted even more Vietnamese food there including phở, spring rolls and fried rice. I went to Chicago for the first time in Spring break and ate deep dish pizza. (So cheesy, creamy and crunchy)
  2. I moved to West Campus and felt more at ease with the new place. The dorm was so small and chaotic. I never felt like coming back to the dorm like the way I want to come back to my own apartment. There is a feeling of home that I cultivate in my apartment which makes me want to come back and relax.
  3. Last but not least, I got a job at LAITS.

My second half of my freshman, I was overwhelmed and did not know how to balance my time between school and other commitments; that’s why I quitted my job as an event staff for Parking and Transportation.Moving to my sophomore, I was clueless about what I want to do with my life. Getting a job here has been one of my defining moments in my second year of college.

However, LAITS offered me an opportunity to learn and grow. At LAITS, I built up my skills slowly with GRAV. My first ever project is Exposure Therapy Lab. I remembered that I felt so overjoyed when I worked on my first task which is fixing different small tasks like moving an item in the navigation down a level and moving a whole section of images of researchers to a whole new different page. Then, the difficulty of the tasks increased with each project. My favorite project is the Master of Arts in Economics. In this project, I managed to design and build a whole WordPress website. I have overcame a lot of hurdles along the way in undertaking this project. However, I pushed through with researching and asking questions from other STAs and supervisor. Maybe, this is what I want to do. Always figuring out the problem and solving it. Always learn and apply what I absorbed. Plus, I will not forget to ask for help if the tasks are too hard. In the last few days, I can see how much I am familiar with WordPress, Grav and Figma to the point that I can train others.

I am excited for the new beginning with the next semester when I can bear more responsibilities.

 

Future?

The summer looks very exciting for me.

Last summer, I had so much quality time with my family. However, I felt like I was not very productive and did not learn as much as I want to. Therefore, this summer, I wanted to take on more opportunities.

  1. Business Development Student: I will work on the development and launch of UT Discovery Connect, an opt-in web-based directory for UT researchers to share their capabilities with potential research or business. I will prepare draft researcher profiles and communications. In this job, I will need to research and write up a lot of profiles for researcher. The duties of the job can also expand with managing the WordPress sites in which I know LAITS fully prepared me for this.
  2. Front-End Engineer Internship at Claudius Legal: I am so glad that I got the internship even though I applied really late. I will work on the design and development of the product with the company. The job relied heavily on front-end skills like Figma, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and also some back-end knowledge with Django. I know that I need to catch up on Django since it is a new framework for me. Regardless, I am excited to grow and build some stuff. LAITS equipped me with necessary design and coding skills for the job!

Moreover, actually, before I undertook these two jobs. I will go to Philippines for a mission trip of my church. I am extremely ecstatic because I will grow spiritually and explore a brand new countries with other brothers and sisters in Christ. I really pray that this will give me more clarify about what I want to do.

 

This year would not be the best year without all of y’all. This is my thank you note to every single one of you. Thank you for being a part of my STA journey. 

Thank You Note

Stacy: Thank you for being such a patient and excellent teacher. I learned so much about web development and front-end engineering from you. The way you explain is very clear, and the expectation is laid out very comprehensively regarding the tasks I need to complete. I grow with this position because of all of the assigned projects and your superb teaching. Thank you and I look forward to even more learning from you.

Valerie: Thank you for being such an amazing supervisor. You always make the office feel like a cozy environment. I really appreciated your effort in getting to know all of the STAs. I am also very happy that I got to share the Vietnamese culture with you. You have inspired and taught me a lot regarding management and design. I really want to see how I can grow even more next semester under your supervision.

Maddy: You are truly a talented designer. I got to see how I can design a wireframe and then translate that into Figma prototype. The process is broken down very clearly with your guidance. I love every minute of working on the design and the Figma interface. I am more comfortable with designing on Figma and can’t wait to learn and apply that in upcoming projects.

Marianne: Thank you! You are always fast with your response whenever I have questions regarding WordPress, terminal or coding in general. You are always very patient and clear with your instructions. Because of your teaching, I can navigate WordPress interface with my eyes closed (jk but you know what I mean). Look forward to even more collaboration with you on projects or just learn more from your work ethics and mindset.

Marissa: Can’t believe we are in the same Art History class. You are one talented Design STA. I really love your logo design and your way of thinking in choosing the logo. You are always cool and calm. Love to see how you can grow further in your position here as an STA.

Lorena: Hey! Hope you have a great time in LA with your internship and courses. I know you will do amazingly there given your skills and experience. You have been working on a wide range of projects that require a broad skill scope. I truly admire your talent and your design mindsets. I don’t know if I will meet you again, but regardless, I hope to see you grow and apply your skills in your future job. I love the Instagram stories that you post about the design process of characters. It was very entertaining and inspiring.

Carrie: 你好! It has been truly a pleasure to get to know and work with you during this year. You are amazing with your skills and a cool person to work with. I hope everything will work out for your future. If I get to visit China, I will surely hit you up first to be my tour guide. From your project and STA presentation, I got to learn about UI/UX process and strengthen my knowledge in class. Thank you for working on Friday and make Friday shifts become so much fun.

Leilani: Wasssup! Thank you for letting me borrow your EGG. It was truly eggcellent to hold onto the stuffed animals whenever I am stressed. Coding is very stressful sometimes, especially when the code works 5 mins before but now the program broke. You are a caring and amazing designer/manager. It is my privilege to see how you can grow from a designer to a manager with tons of Excel files. I can see the impact from De’sha Bass-McClellan carrying onto you. Can’t wait to see you grow even more next semester.

Louisa: Wow! I never know you are Liverpool Fan and has an amazing Instagram art account. It has been really nice knowing and working alongside with you in the office for the past year. You are very knowledgeable with design, history and everything in between. You showcase a unique work ethics and demonstrate a set of desirable skill that future employers will compete with each other to have you. Although it’s sad that we will not work together anymore, the impact you have in the office will always be here and carried on. Please visit LAITS anytime you come back to Austin.

Adrian: You are amazing manager and designer. I love how you are always chilled and make other people feel relaxed when talking with you. It has been a fun time working with you. Even though we never work on a project together, I know you are talented and versatile with different softwares and application. You are gifted with a design mindset and I am ecstatic to witness your development in your job upon graduation. So sad I cannot see you anymore but please keep in contact.

Daniella: Hi! It has been my pleasure to know you. The world is truly small when my roommate also know you though Guadaloop. From my roommate, I already know you are one talented and experienced back-end and system developer. But through STA position, I can see how you are a superstar. You learned and adapted to new environment fairly quickly. I believe that it is your innate talent coupled with your hustle mindset that enables you to absorb knowledge at this fast pace. I know wherever you go, you would be appreciated because of your work ethics and professionalism. It’s sad that we will not see each other next semester but we may cross path and I will be so amazed at who you have become!

Isaiah: Welcome to the team! I know it has only been few months, but we talked a lot during this time. I hope you can grow further and learn so much about web development during this summer. I believe at the end, you will know about the inner working of WordPress and why web development is so cool! Next semester, I am excited to do more projects with you!

 

 

Week 26 – Thang Truong

By

Week 26

STA Project: Google Analytics for GRAV sites

Started on: May 3, 2023

Completed on: May 4, 2023

Description: This project is a continuation of previous work on Google Analytics area. I was tasked to linked Google Analytics Tag into the Grav sites in order to analyze and track data. This is something new that I get to experiment and try out.

First thing first, I looked up different plug-ins. There are two available plugins that help with this task. The names are pretty similar to each other. Upon examining the version number to see which one is recently updated, I went with one of the plugin created by John Linhart. However, this plugin doesn’t transfer the data to the GA account although the tracking code is added to the website. Therefore, I went with the other one. It worked out well, and the all of the tracking data successfully displayed onto the GA-4 account. At a lot of points in this experimenting process, I was frustrated especially at first the data was not displayed even though everything has been set up correctly (the tracking code is added onto the main page of the website).

In the worst case scenario, I would have went with the basic approach that is built upon the fundamental understanding of linking GA account to a website. The approach consists of attaching the JS code for GA into each page of the site. With this way of doing, I need to find a place where I put all of the code onto the website.

STA Project: Google Analytics for Multi-Site

Started on: May 4, 2023

Completed on: May 4, 2023

Description: This project is another project where I need to install GA-4 onto a website particularly all of sites in the multi-site.  In undertaking this project, I need to examine the structure of the multi-site and all of the small sites within it. Then, I need to see how the Site Kit plugin can install onto the multi-site and link to the GA-4 account. It turns out that the Site Kit cannot be set up with each individual site but only to the main site. Moreover, I noticed that there is already GA account linked to this website, but there is no SiteKit plugin. It means that someone has already hooked the GA account to the website by other plugins. After reporting this to Stacy, Stacy scrolled through the list of plugins and found that there was one which is called LAITS Analytics. The funny part is that it was created by none other than the man himself Stacy. After looking at the plugin, the task becomes much more clear in which I just need to add GA-4 JS code upon the UA code.

 

 

 

Week 25 – Thang Truong

By

Week 25

STA Project: Google Analytics

Started on: April 25, 2023

Completed on: April 26, 2023

Description: For this project, I helped set Google Analytics for site that doesn’t have one. 

  1. Set up GA and UA account in Google Analytics as a property of Small Sites in LAITS CMS
  2. Then, I link this GA and UA account to Site Kit.
  3. Sometimes, the screen loads for too long. -> This is a problem with my browser.

STA Training: Training with Isaiah Thomas

Started on: April 27, 2023

Completed on: April 27, 2023

Description: For this project, I helped Isaiah with his WordPress cloning process. 

  1. Navigate through the interface of WordPress
  2. Clone WordPress and migrate the content from the old site to the new one
  3. Quick walkthrough HTML, CSS and JavaScript.