Today is the first day I start the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate at Coursera.org. Having finished the bachelor’s program at Excelsior, I took about 6 months off, from continued education, to relax and have fun. I changed jobs between prison settings, and now I am ready to move forward in my plan to change careers.
Throughout the bachelor’s program, I had been eyeing professional certificates to bolster my degrees. Certificates such as a Project Management Professional (PMP), Human Resource Management (SHRM-CP), or Six Sigma. Each certificate is a great choice, but I don’t have the necessary passion required to jump through some of the hoops required to get my foot in the door. All the while, I have been aware of Yale, Harvard, and MIT’s open courseware, but have never seen a subject that I wanted to devote time to. As time passed by other services such as edX, Coursera, and Udemy started to become more and more popular, but so did YouTube’s “how to do…” content. It wasn’t until 2018, 2 years after the launch of Stardew Valley, did I start looking to learn some sort of computer language, either C# or python, through one of these Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).
The story about the creator of Stardew Valley, Eric Barone, and the experiences a friend of mine was going through in a self-learning program for python, that ended up landing him a stable job, was the final affirmation I needed to motivate me to change the script I was living.
Why choose the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate?
My answer comes straight from the Coursera “about” page https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/google-data-analytics
“…, no experience or degree required.”
“Get professional training designed by Google”
“… the opportunity to connect with top employers.”
“There are 337,400 U.S. job openings in data analytics with a $67,900 average entry-level salary.”
What is Data Analytics?
Data analytics is the collection, transformation, and organization of data. The analyzed data is then used to draw conclusions, make predictions, and drive informed decision-making for organizations.
What skills, platforms, and tools will you learn and gain?
Data collection and cleaning, problem-solving, critical thinking, data ethics, metadata, analysis, data visualization and presentation, spreadsheets, SQL, Tableau, and R Programming.
Currently, I am in week 1 of the first course called Foundations” Data, Data, Everywhere. It is split into 6 weeks:
- Introducing data analytics – how to use tools to make informed decisions.
- Thinking analytically – roles of data analysis and the key required skills.
- Exploring the wonderful world of data – learn about the data life cycle and data analysis process.
- Setting up a data toolbox – Spreadsheets, query languages, and data visualization tools
- Discovering data career possibilities – examine the different types of businesses and the tasks analysts do for them; and how a Google Data Analytics Certificate will help meet many of the requirements for a position with these organizations.
- Completing the course challenge
Other available open courseware
Yale – https://oyc.yale.edu/
Harvard – https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free
MIT – https://ocw.mit.edu/