Review — Is Coursera’s IBM Data Science Professional Certificate Worth it in 2024?

Is Coursera and IBM’s Data Science Professional Certificate really worth it?

javinpaul
Javarevisited
8 min readJan 1, 2022

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Is Coursera’s IBM Data Science Professional Certification Worth it?

Hello guys, many people call data science the sexiest job in this 21 country because of its demand by companies that need to have insights into their data for decision-making and high-paying jobs.

So for that reason, many people are trying to learn the skills needed for the position of a data scientist, and almost no better place than taking this IBM course for data scientists.

IBM Data Science Professional Certificate is one of the best online courses that will give you the most needed skills to get started, and it doesn’t require any skills to get started your journey in his field, so let’s discuss more this course and what you will learn when enrolling in this program.

Review of IBM Data Science Professional Certificate on Coursera

I generally look at three things before joining a course, who is teaching, mean instructor and author, course curricular and what is covered and not covered in the course, and people’s review.

I mean what other people who have joined the course are telling about it. Keeping that tradition, here is my review of Coursera and IBM’s popular Data Science Professional certification review.

1. The Instructors Review

This program was created by almost 11 instructors working in the IBM company and all of them have a greater position with solid experience in the domain of data science like a Ph.D. degree and senior data scientists, so all of the information you get is based on their experience.

instructor of IBM Data Science Professional Certification

2. Course Structure and Content

Here is the list of courses included in this popular Data Science Professional certification from Coursera.

2.1. What is Data Science?

You will start learning by defining what a data scientist is and what he does inside the company, like what tools are used by the data scientist daily and the skills needed by anyone wanting a career in this industry with some advice for new people.

Finally, you will learn the approaches or methods companies need to take to start working with data science. Talking about social proof, more than 519K students have already joined this course to learn what is data science and how to become a data scientist in 2024.

Here is the link to join this course What is Data Science?

Coursera course — what is data science worth it?

2.2. Tools for Data Science

After getting some information about the company’s data science role, you will begin in the second portion of this program to learn about the programming languages used by the data scientists, such as python programming language.

You will also see the popular data science tools used: GitHub, jupyter notebook, and R studio. Talking about social proof, more than 243K students have already joined this course to learn essential tools for data science.

Here is the link to join this course Tools for Data Science

Coursera course — Tools for Data Science worth it?

2.3. Data Science Methodology

Now you will get to why companies want a data scientist and the different methodologies used by a data scientist and learn the two stages of data science methodology, which are business understanding and analytic approach.

You will see also what we mean by understanding the data and cleaning them and the purpose of data modeling. Talking about social proof, more than 165K students have joined this course on Coursera.

Here is the link to join this course Data Science Methodology

Coursera course — Data Science methodology worth it?

2.4. Python for Data Science, AI & Development

Now you’ve got to the most fun part, which is learning the python language by starting with its basics like the different data types and moving to the data structures.

For example, you will learn how to store data collection in one variable like lists and tuples and dictionaries and how to use python with data like reading and writing in files and perform web scraping.

Talking about social proof, more than 250K students have already joined this course to learn Python for Data Science, and it's one of the most popular Coursera courses on this subject.

Here is the link to join this course Python for Data Science, AI & Development

Coursera course — Python for Data Science worth it?

2.5. Python Project for Data Science

This course will require you to have experience in python language, and you have completed the previous courses since you will start exploring and testing your skills in this language working with data.

More than 41K students have already joined this program on Coursera and if you love to learn by doing then you can also join it too.

Here is the link to join this project Python Project for Data Science

Coursera course — Python projects for Data Science worth it?

2.6. Databases and SQL for Data Science with Python

You will understand using the SQL language to pull data from the database. Next, you will understand the relationship between the different tables inside the database.

Also, you will move to some intermediate level of searching data using string patterns and ranges and how to access the database using python.

best Coursera course to learn SQL and DAtabase for Data Science

2.7. Data Analysis with Python

The most important part of data science is analyzing data, so you will learn to use python to analyze data and explore many different data types. You will learn skills such as preparing data for analysis and performing simple statistics.

best Coursera course to learn Data Analysis with Python

2.8. Data Visualization with Python

Using this python package, you will start by understanding the different visualization tools such as matplotlib and create charts such as pie charts and scatter plots.

Next, you will move to advanced data visualization and learn about the seaborn library and how to perform word cloud visualization and geospatial visualization using Folium.

best Coursera course to learn Data Visualization with Python

2.9. Machine Learning with Python

You will understand the machine learning different types and how they are applied in health care and other industries. Next, you will start applying machine learning algorithms on data such as regression and classification using different algorithms like the SVM and decision trees and learn about applying to cluster and building a recommendation system.

best machine learning with python course on Coursera

2.10. Applied Data Science Capstone

This the last course in the program will test your knowledge in data science and apply what you have learned in a real scenario, like making RESTful API and using python pandas library to manipulate data and visualize the latter and applying machine learning to your data.

By the way, this course is also part of multiple programs, and completing the course will count towards your learning in any of the following programs:

  1. IBM Data Science Professional Certificate
  2. Applied Data Science Specialization

Talking about social proof, more than 87K people have already joined this program.

Here is the link to join this project — Applied Data Science Capstone

Coursera course — applid data science capstone worth it?

Conclusion

Data science is an intense field, and some companies require you to have more skills than a simple program has reached you, like deep learning and another programming language. Hence, you have to understand much more and practice real-life data to gain the knowledge needed for this position.

By the way, you can either join this professional certificate alone or you can take a Coursera Plus membership which allows access to more than 3000+ Coursera courses and unlimited access to popular Coursera certification and specializations. If you want to take more than one course or certificate then you should join Coursera Plus.

Other Coursera Resource Articles you may like

Thanks for reading this article. If you like this review of Coursera and IBM’s Data Science Professional Certification, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.

P. S. — And, If you are looking for the best Udemy online courses to learn Cyber Security and Information Security, you can also check out The Data Science Course 2024: Complete Data Science Bootcamp course by 365 Careers on Udemy. It is also one of the most popular and highest-rated Udemy courses to learn Data Science.

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javinpaul
Javarevisited

I am Java programmer, blogger, working on Java, J2EE, UNIX, FIX Protocol. I share Java tips on http://javarevisited.blogspot.com and http://java67.com