 Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Pixel Data Scapes. I'm your host, Hannah Gunderman, and I'm a data, gaming, and popular culture librarian at CMU Libraries. I'm really excited by my role here at the Libraries, which is all about using games and popular culture to teach about data and data management principles. I'm also a gamer and love to spend my free time playing video games, and Pixel Data Scapes is a place where I can combine these two things. There are so many lessons we can learn about data and data management from video games, and today I'm going to be talking about what Greece can teach us about having confidence in our data skills and progressing on our data journey. So sit back, relax, and let's dive in. It comes to your mind when I say the word data. Do you feel excited, empowered, curious? For me and many others, when I hear the word data, I immediately feel fear. I feel insufficient, apprehensive, and intimidated. I still remember the moment in elementary school when I realized I had gotten the lowest score out of the whole class on a math test. That instills the personal fear of anything quantitative, and it's a fear that has stayed with me for most of my life and continues to haunt me today many years later even as a person who works in data librarianship. This isn't a unique experience. In my work at CMU Libraries, I've encountered many people who have that same fear and intimidation of working with data, even from folks who have a quantitative background. I'm here to tell you that having feelings of intimidation, inadequacy, and fear when working with data is completely valid, and it's not something you have to be ashamed of. Especially when you are looking for data support from CMU Libraries, where we offer a judgment free space for helping you advance on your data journey. When I was recently playing the video game Grease, I began to reflect more on my own feelings around data and how I could support other people who might feel the same way. Grease is the game developed by Nomadus Studio and first released in 2018, and as the player you follow the story of a character named Grease, who has suddenly lost her voice and begins to navigate this colorless environment around her. As you advance through the game, you gain new abilities that allow you to more easily navigate through this environment, slowly restoring color to the world around Grease. The game environment is built on solving puzzles, which allow you to collect stars, which in turn build constellations to help you as the player reach new levels in the game. Grease is an absolutely beautiful game in both its visuals and its music, and when I was first playing through the game, I found myself often becoming completely overtaken by emotion. The colors, the sounds, and the sights often became overwhelming in the best way possible, and I would have to pause the game to reflect on the experience. Although the game was designed to commentate on themes of grief and depression, as I was playing Grease, I thought about my own journey and trying to become more comfortable around data and teaching others about concepts in data and data management. When I hear the word data, my first instinct is to imagine myself in a colorless, intimidating environment, struggling to try and navigate everything that surrounds this word, constantly thinking about things I could be better at, and comparing myself to others who are more advanced in their data skills than myself. But playing Grease taught me to try and think about my own strengths and what I bring to the table when it comes to data. As I navigate Grease and collect stars to build constellations, I think about what those stars are in my own data journey, which help me build new pathways and grow skills in becoming more confident in working with data. Those new pathways built by the constellations created by these stars help make my world of data much more comfortable and exciting. Data can be scary to work with for many reasons. It might be that you have found the spaces where you learn about data topics, such as analysis techniques, programming, etc., to be unwelcoming. It could be that you're afraid to ask questions or get help, because of how competitive the data space can often feel. It could also be that you haven't found the right training or the right learning environment for you. Speaking personally, my humanity's background meant that I didn't have a lot of coursework in data topics, so when I finally entered those spaces to start learning more about data, I was so intimidated and really didn't feel welcome. There could be a host of other reasons that I haven't mentioned here that have made data an intimidating concept for you and me. But Grease helped me realize that I do bring strengths to my data journey, and I am capable of existing and thriving in this space, and this game can do the same for you. I realized I could leverage my own strengths in the data space, which includes a background in working with unique data sources in the humanities, such as film and pictures, and that I didn't have to feel like I am inadequate or don't belong in the world of data. I have my own unique strengths that enrich my own data journey, and these strengths are the stars making up the constellations that move me forward in advancing my data skills. Even if you don't get a chance to play Grease, I want you to think about your own relationship to the word data and reflect on your own data journey. What strengths do you bring to the table? What are your stars that you can collect and build a constellation from to create new pathways on your data journey? Are there areas where you'd like some additional support? CMU Libraries can help offer that support to you through workshops, consulting, and helping you design your projects and data analysis techniques. You don't have to go on this data journey alone, and just like we can help Grease advance through her world and gain new abilities and skills that help make her world a bit brighter, we can do the same for you through our data support at CMU Libraries. I hope this video has been entertaining and helpful for your own research process at CMU. All of us at CMU Libraries are here to support you in your journey in working with data and communicating with data. If you're struggling with your own confidence around data and would like support in advancing your data journey, feel free to send us an email at data at CMU.libansers.com and we'd be more than happy to chat. So until next time, thank you for watching and we'll see you soon.