I started to learn ArcGIS this week and so far so good. I had a bit of a slow start just messing around with how to upload files to a map and create a new layer, but once that was done it got a lot easier. When adding fields, the application is very intuitive in offering a variety options for how you want to represent the data and legend. I found this to be very helpful because it makes it easy to find the best way to represent that specific data. There’s colors, sizes, different shapes for the data points, and so many other interesting features. I’m in intro to data science right now and we talk about accurately representing data quite often, so this was a cool crossover.
Currently I would not be comfortable helping someone with ArcGIS because I still feel very new to it and don’t entirely know what’s going on. I really like this tool though, so I’ll be playing around with it more. One thing that was frustrating was that I added the Grinnell census data as a layer, but then realized I didn’t check the right boxes for the variables and deleted the layer. I tried to make a new one with the correct boxes checked, but it wouldn’t let me. So it seems that you can only have one layer from a file, even if you delete it and try again. I’d like to get better at that part, which isn’t the interesting part but I think I need a good handle on that technical set up.