If you are looking to make a career progression to data analytics and looking for further education, you must have seen tons of banner ads and sponsored posts on online courses as well as the latest drops from various e-commerce sites planted by big training organizations offering information, certification, and visualization to the highly-technical ones like learning an introduction to advanced R, Python, SQL, and data mining.
Among all these courses how do you pick the best one suited for you? The choices can get overwhelming and will give you the feeling that you need to take as many courses as possible to get a highly paid job and become an expert in the best way possible. However, you don’t need to go for so many courses, instead, just find a course that can provide you with the qualifications you need.
Here are the top four essential tips to consider when it comes to choosing a course in data science.
Be clear on your specialization
It doesn’t end wanting to become a data scientist, while many people aspire to become a data scientist, there are several roles involved in this chain that are equally important. According to research, there are four major roles in data science, data steward, data engineer, data scientist, and data analyst. Each role has a different skillset from one another and this needs to be taken into consideration before you can do all the statistical and analytics models or even build algorithms. As a data scientist, your main job is that you need to have a clean dataset, to begin with, and ensure that you have properly sorted out and processed data for future analysis. It also begs the question of what kind of career you want to pursue, do you want to be a freelancer, practitioner, or consultant? Or choose to remain an employee with your newfound skillset. Another great option is to use your knowledge and skills to collaborate with people and to build game-changing apps.
Have an honest assessment of your skills
The first step to learning and becoming what you are is knowing what you don’t know and accepting what you know, learning new skills, and studying new topics no matter how daunting they may seem at first. One way of doing this is taking an online assessment based on ten analytical competencies (a self-assessment test) and rating yourself based on the score. This will tell you how skilled and experienced you are in the topic and whether you need to go for a basic level or an advanced one. Being honest with yourself will help you uncover and focus on what you need to work on much more than the rest. It will help you prioritize and decide which courses you need to take first and then build on that by either jumping straight into technical or starting with concepts and analytics. Online training will help you focus on what you need to do.
Plan out your data science course fees
With the rising popularity of courses in data science, some online courses have access to quality education from all over the world along with advanced technology and software’s which can benefit everyone with an affordable and flexible way to learn new skills, advance your career and deliver new experiences at your own pace. Depending on the skill set you need and the course you take, data science course rates can vary from platform to platform. Some online courses allow you to earn a certificate which you can include in your CV or profile to ramp up your credentials. If your goal is to just learn a new skill and not apply for certification, you can always go for a free course on YouTube. However, if you want to invest in proper education and establish a high-ranking career then you need to go with a paid online course as they will teach you all the skills you need for hands-on experience. There are a wide variety of learning options and there is something for every budget, goals, and financial capacity.
In Conclusion
No matter what stage you are in your career or business and you want to go in for an online course, data science and analytics is the best option in a digitally connected world. Not only does it teach you a lot but also it opens you up to a whole new world of career options you didn’t know were there.