Hey everyone, today let us talk about something new. During the pandemic, I was exploring through various career opportunities of which one particular field inspired me the most. Data Analytics. Everything we see on the internet is data. Every single google search or the number of Covid-19 cases around the world is data. There is a lot of information out there that needs to be processed. I was very excited to learn the insights of the data analytics field, how the dashboards we see everyday with such huge data is created, how the world is transforming as we know it, I started exploring options through various educational platforms and I came across this particular offered by Google, one of the largest companies that process millions of search every minute.
In this article, I will be writing an overview about what the certification course is about, how much does it cost, who should take it, what do you get from it. I will be writing in depth of each module in the certification series in coming articles.
Overview of the Certification course
The Google Data Analytics Professional Certification is offered by Google through Coursera Platform.
The certification course is a 8 part series which gives you a detailed process when working on a data analytics project. They go as follows:
- Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere
- Ask Questions to Make Data-Driven Decisions
- Prepare Data for Exploration
- Process Data from Dirty to Clean
- Analyze Data to Answer Questions
- Share Data Through the Art of Visualization
- Data Analysis with R Programming
- Google Data Analytics Capstone: Complete a Case Study
Foundations course offers you an overview of the role of a data analyst, the tools that are widely used, the skills that needs to be developed. The course also gives a brief introduction about the six-step method that is taught in this certification course to complete a data analytics project.
Ask is step one in the process that needs to be completed by a data analyst. A data can contain a lot of information. As a data analyst it is your job to ask the right questions to gather the information needed to start the project. This part explains a few concepts such as data-driven decision making, importance of certain tools.
Prepare is step two of the process. Once the analyst gets an idea of what to work on, what are the expectations of stakeholders, they get to start looking for the right data. The course explains the differences between the types of data that is available, how to validate the data that we have to complete the analysis as every data that we receive may not be true and before giving our results we should be absolutely sure that the data is accurate. The course also explains the use of different tools such as Spreadsheets, SQL according to the situation and data at hand.
Process is step three and one of the important steps that needs to be completed. The data that we receive is not always clean, for example, when you send a google form to thousands of users, you can expect some spelling mistakes of city names or numbers that doesn’t belong in a particular column so on and so forth. It is the job of a data analyst to clean the data using various tools available in your hand. The course also gives a overview of simple sql queries that can used in the process.
Analyze is step four and surprisingly is not the final step in the process. The course explains how to organize data for analysis, formatting and adjusting the data according to the requirement (like taking a smaller sample set if needed). The course also explains the use of functions in spreadsheets, SQL queries.
Share is step five in the process. The course explains the importance of data visualization, how to create dashboards in various tools. The course also explains the use of Tableau one of the data visualization softwares that is available in the market.
R programming course is seventh course in the series and it explains the importance of R programming. The course also explains the use of R studio that is used to apply R to your analysis.
Capstone project is the final course in the series. The capstone project has two sets of case studies that you can choose to complete. One set is given with solution steps that is needed to complete the case study. Another set of case studies can be chosen by the student and they can complete a project of their choice. The course also also guides us to create a portfolio that you can use to build your profile.
Cost to complete the certification
The certification course can be enrolled for free and can be tried for a week. After that you can pay monthly fees as long as it takes to complete the series. The monthly fees varies from region to region.
Benefits of completing the course
Once you complete the certification course, you will receive a sharable badge from Credly that you can add to your portfolio which can be verified by hiring managers during your hiring process.
There are various skills and tools that are learned in the process of completing the certification series. However, most of the tools that are taught in the course are very basic you need to develop your skillset as you go.
Should you take the course?
If you are someone that is interested in the field of data. If you are curious in finding solutions by analyzing data that is available to you and provide powerful insights, data analysis is a field that you can explore. You will find basic skills that you require to learn in order to become a data analyst in this course. Please keep in mind that you should work a lot even after completing the course and your skillset to be a successful candidate for a job.
Thank you for reading the article. Have a wonderful day.
