MEET LANDRY

Landry Butler wanted a career that came with “exciting challenges and learning opportunities.” After discovering the information design work of Edward Tufte and the Nielsen Norman Group, Landry found an interest in telling stories through data. “Information design is related to Data Analytics in that it’s making sure that whatever the story you’re trying to communicate through the data that it’s told well and that the data actually backs up the story,” he explains. 

Landry decided to pursue his interest in data analytics and applied for the Part-time Data Analytics bootcamp offered by Nashville Software School (NSS). 

THE NSS EXPERIENCE 

“It’s been a lot of work but it’s been exciting,” he says of his time in part-time Data Analytics Cohort 2. “It’s one of those things that you just start digging into, and there’s a lot to dig into. It’s not easy to learn, it’s not easy to master, but the program they have here at [NSS] is really good at directing us and helping us figure out things.” 

Landry speaks fondly of his classmates and how helpful they were in helping him overcome roadblocks along the way. “I think [Part-time Data Analytics Cohort 2] is a group of people who have seen that data analysis is a great way to tell stories, to connect with people, and a great way to influence decisions at their organizations. And we just jumped in there and started working on it.” 

CAPSTONE PROJECT

Landry’s capstone project titled “Serving the Under-served: A brief look into the need of additional outpatient clinics in growing areas of Nashville, TN,” takes an in-depth look into the communities of Davidson County and the surrounding healthcare providers. “I live on the northwest side of town and it’s still relatively undeveloped out here,” he shares. “We’ve got a place out here that we love and there’s a lot to see but there’s no healthcare. If I were to break my arm or twist an ankle or get Strep throat, it’s at least a 20 minute drive to the nearest outpatient clinic or the nearest hospital.” 

Landry wanted to explore the feasibility of building an outpatient clinic in the northwest area of Nashville that can deal with acute medical emergencies and chronic illnesses that affect the surrounding communities. To do this, he pulled his data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s “500 Cities” study. In this study, they surveyed 500 cities and rated them for their prevalence of different chronic healthcare challenges such as heart disease, kidney disease, asthma, high blood pressure, etc. 

Originally, Landry was curious to see if the lack of healthcare in this part of town was income related, so he first observed the median income across Nashville. “As it turns out, most of the poor people in Nashville don’t live in this part of town, it’s a pretty average income median in the northwest part of town, but still only 3 healthcare facilities,” he explains. “I think as the city expands, they are really talking about a 40% increase over the next 50 years, a lot of people will be moving out here. This has been one of the more rural parts of town, more lower income, but it’s a great place to live, and as more people discover it, then there’s going to be more need for healthcare.” 

Landry used Tableau to visualize and present his data, but shares that most of his work was performed in Python and Jupyter Notebooks. “Python really gave me an opportunity to get the data ready so that when I took it into Tableau, it was a lot easier to get the visualizations that I wanted so I can focus on the story in the data instead of trying to tell my own story.” 

HIRE LANDRY

Landry is excited about the possibility to get back into a career in the healthcare field and help solve issues by telling stories with data analytics. During his job search, he is working on some personal projects to gain additional skills. 

Learn more about Landry by visiting his LinkedIn profile or listening to his podcast!

Check out all the recent grads at Part-time Data Analytics 2's website and hear the graduates share their experience at NSS and capstone projects in their podcasts below.