DataDrivenInvestor
Sep 10
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Whether you are looking for an entry-level job in the analytics field, or just trying to understand how Google does data analysis, this certification might be the right one for you!
It includes 8 courses, and the estimated time to complete it is approximately 6 months, considering a pace of 10h per week (although I think that’s an overestimation).
It will give you a gentle introduction to the world of data analysis, tackling generic analytics skills but also more technical ones such as SQL, R and Tableau. Also, in the end you get a certification issued by Google, which can open doors in some companies, or at least give your CV some edge.
Despite its long duration, I found it a bit too basic: it’s not very demanding in terms of code and it focuses a lot more on the process of data analysis. There is nothing wrong with that, and it can definitely be useful. However, I don’t think that, just by doing this certification, anyone will be ready to start working as a data analyst.
I recommend it in a few cases:
That said, let’s see how the analytical process is presented during the certification, in order to get some insight on the best practices preached by Google.
I can’t be sure if Google actually uses this approach in their own projects, but I guess that, if they teach it in their own online course, this should be at least close to what they believe is a good approach.
They split the analytical process in 6 sequential steps:
Let’s look at the problems we are trying to solve in each phase:
To be honest, in practice I tend to see an iterative flow more often, where you end up going back to previous steps due to changes in scope or to discoveries you made along the way.
They also identified 6 types of problem a data analyst will be assigned to:
They did not, however, get into more detail on how this categorization is useful in dealing with the data: should your approach change according to the type of problem you are facing? If so, how?
As I said, it’s all very basic, but it can help you see the big picture and give your work some structure. The course will go more into the details of each phase, for example showing you how to filter data using SQL during the “Process” part. But, even then, the SQL queries will be very simple, quite different from what you will find in real life.
If you are interested in taking the certification, here’s the Coursera link:
www.coursera.org
If you liked this article, you will probably like these ones too:
towardsdatascience.com
towardsdatascience.com
towardsdatascience.com
Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you would like to discuss further, it would be a pleasure (honestly).
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