College internships can be one of the most insightful and unique opportunities in your young adult life. You’ve spent so much of your time studying and attending classes. You’ve likely chosen a major. Now you get a real look into how a company operates.
As you’re beginning your internship Phillips 66, we wanted to give you the opportunity to hear what the experience was like for a former intern who completed the internship, went back to school to complete their degree, and is now works full time at Phillips 66. Take a moment to get to know Sarah Burns.
Current Role: Yields Analyst and Boiler House Unit Process Engineer
Internship Class: 2018
Home State: Colorado
Degree: BS Chemical Engineering, CU Boulder
School: Currently pursuing her MBA from Rice University
Hobbies: The great outdoors, history, reading, writing short stories and poetry
Tableau favorites
Favorite color palette: Blue Red Brown (BRB), Hue Circle
Uses ‘BRB’ when not comparing many things. It also matched P66 colors well.
Favorite data set: The P66 Sigmafine SQL database and the Orion database – there’s so much data available for creating new vizzes
Favorite feature: Analysis Grand Total
Favorite Viz: The DCS and xOL dashboards (made by Todd Stutts) are a great way to check unit alarm statuses and drive effective conversations.
Sarah, you mentioned you make a connection between history and the way you think about data. Care to elaborate?
My love of history has significantly impacted the way I view and use data—I think it is important to have a healthy understanding of past conditions, be them market fluctuations or unit operations, and use that information to get a better, bigger picture that can be applied to the analysis of current and future data.
Past data helps you visualize trends, outliers, and (oftentimes most importantly) changes. Past data gives you the strong foundation a data analyst needs—it provides structure to the cause and effect questions that are often asked, and it gives a solid reference point.
Plus, as an added bonus, by looking to the past you acquire a glimpse of a different time, a different set of operating conditions and a different, earlier chapter to your current data story (which is always neat)!
When did you first learn about Tableau?
When I started as a new-hire, I received a five-minute glimpse of Tableau from my predecessor in the Yields and Operations Analyst role when they were updating the data source for a dashboard. But, a few months later, I had the opportunity to attend the three-day analytics training and really got to know the software—needless to say, I was hooked after that! My Tableau journey did not end with that training—I began upgrading and updating some of the older dashboards I inherited and created plenty of new ones as well.
How do you use Tableau now?
Today I dabble in data involving process engineering, optimization, planning, and economics. It ranges from MMO and Meter Error dashboards, to Water Quality and Unit Monitoring.
What was your favorite part of your P66 internship?
It was great to work with so many different people while doing so many different projects. You learn so much about the big picture of the refinery by combining the snap shots you receive while working on your projects.
Do you have any advice for P66 interns?
My advice is three-fold:
- You are not expected to be an expert in the role your intern projects are focused in, but you will be an expert at learning by the time your internship is complete.
- Have fun with what you are trying to build - try out crazy graphs - you will not break Tableau. Then, after creating your first Tableau Viz, go out and get feedback!
- Using color is really important - whatever story you are trying to tell, make sure the colors showcase the story. For example, you can use the classic green and red to delineate positive vs. negative data.
What has been your favorite part of working at P66 full time?
The people, the challenge, and the day-to-day differences.
People: I can go up to anyone and ask questions. People are always willing to spend time out in the field or in the office with you while brainstorming on new projects and ideas.
Challenge: You learn quickly that there are plenty of unique solutions to every question, and every problem. One of the fun parts is determining which is the best route forward.
Every day is different: There is never a dull day. Every day is a learning experience. I would say that is where my history nerd side comes in handy: you learn a lot just by listening to the stories and experiences people have to share.
What’s been the most challenging part about working at P66?
Knowing when to leave to go home. I find myself working away and loving it: all of the sudden, it is late in the evening and hours have completely passed by. With the long summer days that can be an even bigger problem…
Can you share with us your “ah ha” moment with Tableau? This can be a time you really understood what Tableau could do for you.
My “ah ha” moment came after I had already built a couple of dashboards:
My boss asked me one day if I could create a dashboard that visualized a pretty challenging data set and, without hesitation, I realized the answer was “yes”. I had no idea how I would accomplish it; I just knew that it had to be possible with Tableau. When it all came together and worked, that was the “ah ha” moment.
I refuse to say “no, that is not possible” to data set visualization inquiries because I firmly believe that, with the help from Tableau and a willingness to accept the challenge, you can successfully communicate the correct data story.