Having completed this certification, I can assure y’all that this one is the best beginner-level data science certification program for enthusiasts looking to kickstart their professional data science career.
From explaining what data science is and why is it so popular to making the learners do a capstone with APIs integration — I highly recommend taking up this 9-course challenge!
Courses
What is Data Science?
Open Source tools for Data Science
Data Science Methodology
Python for Data Science and AI
Databases and SQL for Data Science
Data Analysis with Python
Data Visualization with Python
Machine Learning with Python
Applied Data Science Capstone
The certification requires no pre-requisites. However, if you wish a better grasp of learning, I’d suggest completing a crash course on Python beforehand. By course 6, you will start building projects from scratch, making this a perfect way to get some fancy projects on your resumes!
Tableau is offering discounts on many of its certifications but this one — Data Scientist Learning Path is for FREE. A sister certification is Tableau Data Analyst.
This exam is for those who have basic, foundational skills and understanding of Tableau Desktop and at least three months of applying an understanding, and experience with Tableau.
Fee =$50 through June 30, 2020 ($100 after June 30)
Time Limit: 60 minutes
Question Format: Multiple choice, multiple response
Number of Questions: 30
Passing score: 70%
Skills measured
Exploring and preparing data
Exploring & Analyzing Data
Sharing insights
Understanding Tableau Concepts
Timeliness
3. HarvardX’s Data Science Professional Certificate
Harvard University partnered with edX has a Data Science Certification that covers fundamental R programming skills, statistical concepts such as probability, inference, and modeling, experience with packages as tidyverse, ggplot2, and dplyr.
The best part about this certification is the course touching base on essential tools for practicing data scientists such as Unix/Linux, Git and GitHub, and RStudio
Another crest for this certification is its realism — the courses introduce the learners to motivating real-world case studies in the likes of —
The Business Analytics Specialization is hosted on Coursera developed with Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It provides a good foundational introduction to big data analytics across business professions such as marketing, human resources, operations and finance. The courses require NO prior analytics experience.
A stats on the website says 46% of learners started a new career after completing this specialization and 21% of learners got a pay increase or promotion.
Having audited the course and completing it, I can say it surely develops a sense of how we as data analysts should and can describe, predict, and inform business decisions in specific business areas. I am sure, after completing the specialization, any learner will develop an analytic mindset to help make better strategic decisions based on data, than having done before.
Courses
Customer Analytics
People Analytics
Accounting Analytics
Operations Analytics
Business Analytics Capstone
The capstone requires learners to combine knowledge from the four courses and encourages to make data-driven decisions for real business challenges faced by global technology giants as Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
The Advanced Business Analytics Specialization is hosted on Coursera developed with the University of Colorado, Boulder. The specialization merges the thin line between academia and business-world to combine learnings from experienced practitioners from both domains to share real-world data analytics skills to the learners.
A stats on the website says 50% of learners started a new career after completing this specialization! That’s something we are talking about!
Again, after completing this specialization, I am affirmed that I can now better draft and recognize the maximum value for shareholders. The course walked me through a thorough experience in data extraction and manipulation using SQL and to leverage statistical techniques for descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics for different business domains. More importantly, the course effectively teaches how to interpret and present analytic results for an efficient decision making.
Duration — Few months to several years
Cost — $250
Level — Advanced
Platform — SAS Academy for Data Science
The SAS Academy for Data Science is one of the prestigious platforms to learn SAS for Data Science. It offers courses in data curation, advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to advance your career in data. Mind you, SAS itself is a tricky horizon to explore for beginners. If you are ready to take up one of the below examinations, make sure you are in complete knowledge of the prerequisites.
There are three basic pathways in SAS Academy
Data curation Professional (4 courses | 1 exam| 5 badges | $1295/yr)
Duration — 180 minutes exam
Level — Advanced
Platform — Microsoft
Price —$165
Total Questions — 45 to 55
Type — Single and multi-choice questions
With Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE), you can demonstrate broad skillsets in database administration, SQL, building enterprise-scale data solutions, and leveraging business intelligence data.
What will you learn?
BI Reporting
Data Engineering with Azure
Machine Learning
SQL 2016 BI Development
SQL 2016 Database Administration
SQL 2016 Database Development
SQL Server 2012/2014
There are 3 steps to secure this certification
Work with SQL Server 2012/2014/2016 Database Administration and earn Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate for SQL Server.
Gain knowledge about Database Development, BI Development, Machine Learning, BI Reporting or Data Engineering with Azure
Pass 1 required exam.
The certification portal contains exam prep resources as well
Price — $165
Total Questions — 51
Type — Single and multi-choice questions (~50% questions from ML studio, 40% from ML service & 10% generic data science questions.)
By far the most tenuous certification I’ve come across and therefore the last on my list, the Microsoft Azure Data Scientist Certification is aimed for learners who wants to apply their data science and machine learning knowledge to implement and run machine learning models on Azure.
The good part about this certification is that you complete the examination with deploying a model as a service. What better than a product-ready project!?
The path is simple: Take one exam and earn the certificate
Skills Measured
Set up an Azure Machine Learning workspace (30–35%)
Run experiments and train models in Azure (25–30%)
Optimize and manage Azure built models (20–25%)
Deploy and consume the production-ready models (20–25%)
That’s it from my end for this blog. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the article. Do let me know what certification are you looking forward to learning or exploring in your Data Science journey this summer?
Some of the best data science certification programs worth considering