Do it here. I just enrolled myself in case I get a lot of free time soon
On a related note, do yall know any resources to show proof of skills to prospective employers? Right now the only thing that comes to mind is going hamburger on the AdventureWorks dataset... Build some reports and answer some data questions and then buy the premium version of Software that allows for shareable links and throw it on a website. I really don't want to deal with all the website bullshyt tbh so let me know if I'm overlooking anything.
Google Data Analytic Certification Review
Overview: Good if you have no experience, not prior job knowledge. Not useful as an IT cert. Need further studying for a job
Price: is like 39$ a month.
Time line: I finished it in two weeks, but I didn't officially finished until 3 months due to procrastination on the capstone project.
Skills taught: Tableau, Google Spreadsheet(Excel), R, SQL
Also, job stuff, Data thinking
Overview:
The course outline is this:
1. Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere:
2. Ask Questions to Make Data-Driven Decisions:
3. Prepare Data for Exploration:
4. Process Data from Dirty to Clean:
5. Analyze Data to Answer Questions:
6. Share Data Through the Art of Visualization:
7. Data Analysis with R Programming:
8. Google Data Analytics Capstone: Complete a Case Study:
The course mainly goes over a selection of topics: Making yourself marketable in the job market, workplace etiquette in data, Thinking in a data analytical way, Spreadsheets, SQL, R, and Tableau (and storytelling). Google has a 6 step process for data that you can look up.
Briefing talking about my backgrounds: I have a economics background, and currently worked in the data field, but was not using programming language at work as a recently post Bach grad. Was/am currently doing my master while doing cert. I learned R through school, and excel proficiently through work. I learn SQL through data camp prior to doing this cert.
Thus, why my timeline was very short. However, if you take this like you would going to high school, you could finished this in the same rate.
I think that the topics cover were great to trash:
SQL: the basics of SQL was pretty good. This is good enough to get you started. ie SELECT FROM, INSERT, CREATE TABLE, WHERE, AVG, MIN, etc. very simple. The questions were not too hard tho
- BIGQUERY is trash in terms of using, by they have good real world datasets
R: I am a R fanboy due to me using it in my economic backgrounds
- Very short compared to how I actually use it
- Many people were confused from it on how she presented it.
- I didn't like the visualization part of it. I myself only use visualization in R to see visual what I need to code. A good non "R" looking visualization takes too much code.
- Not really don't well from my opinion as well
Tableau: Used for visualizations
- Not done well
- In my experience the hardest to learn quickly.
- SPREADSHEETS are the most important thing to learn, which I don't believed was covered.
- Even other parts are not well done as well . Example: One of the case studies uses location data. This course does not really go in depth on map graph. So without outside searching, you will be stuck
- Best to learn outside of course
Spreadsheet: Well done
- A Data analyst who can't use excel is a joke
- Give a good amount of knowledge in terms daily operation, formulas, and etc
- This is the best of the course
They also cover some aspects, like thinking in a data way, thinking in a critical way, making sure you know how to act in a job (ie emails, dress, etc), job search and interview tips, career development tips, etc. Probably the most valuable from the cert. Its the biggest value over the similar IBM cert.
Job opportunities: Close to none. Google states companies are willing to hire post cert. This is a lie, even the Secret job board Google has is relatively poor. The job board does not have a lot of remote opps (I believe less than 20 off top). If you don't care moving, you could prob get a job, however, most opps are in High Living areas however.
Companies in general are not aware of this cert as well, and does not hold real cert weight compared to lets say C++ or COMPTIA++ or even a Tableau Cert
- To this point, in the data field, projects>certs. And Experience>projects. Make sure do the capstone project and other projects very soon.
- To the first point, get a Github, LinkedIn, and a portfolio website
Personally, post cert, I have went from a 15$ data job to just this month of May accepting a job just under 70k. The google cert
DID NOT HELP DIRECTLY (you will see many people call it useless) however indirectly, it gave me a lot terminology that I could use on interviews. Please keep in mind when take the cert. And questions, ask me.
Minimum effort w/ future employers still being pleasantly surprised at your initiative
