Data Science Certificates Are Trending Right Now: Here’s the Ones Worth Getting in 2024
These are the certificates that data science employers are looking for
Data science certificates are a known fast track to a career in this sought-after field.
Whatever your educational background, whether recent or from many years ago, data science certificates can be the perfect tool to gain just enough expertise to transition into data science or any of the other adjacent fields.
The problem is that there are so many data science certificates on the market that it’s easy to pay for one that employers don’t care about. As much as many certificate providers will claim that their graduates get data science jobs, there’s only a handful of certificates that employers will consider as some serious education in data science.
While many are still managing to enter the field as completely self-trained data scientists, these candidates are few and far between, often having significantly relevant experiences, such as being a Ph.D. candidate and doing massive amounts of data analysis for their thesis, being a software engineer who dabbled in data engineering pipelines, or being an aerospace engineer who wrote some code for airplane-related software, to name a few.
As such, data science certificates still present important and viable pathways into the field. You just need to know which ones are worth getting to help you transition into data science in 2024.
Criteria to consider when choosing a data science certificate
Here are five things to consider when choosing which data science certificate you will complete in 2024:
- Cost: While many will say that you should consider content as the most important criterion in choosing a data science certificate, I believe you should consider cost first. No matter how good a program is, you shouldn’t choose a data science certificate that is outside of your budget. Many high-quality data science certificates exist that won’t break the bank, while also providing you the level of education needed to get a job. Prestige isn’t everything with a certificate, so don't shell out extra money if you don’t have to.
- Acceptance in industry: As much as alternative methods of accreditation are now being more commonly recognized by employers, as seen by Duolingo now being accepted as a language proficiency standard by many institutions and employers, the confidence remains with post-secondary-provided education. Therefore, it’s important to pick a data science certificate that is widely accepted by employers to avoid wasting your time and money on a program that may not be recognized as a valid form of education.
- Content: The content of the program will be the next most important factor in the certificate you choose. Data science certificates should cover programming in Python or R (along with their respective relevant packages), working with data in SQL (and possibly Excel), data cleaning, data analysis, and data visualization. Other topics may also be covered, but those listed above should be the bare minimum. Something to also consider here is whether there are any prerequisites for the program, or whether it would be beneficial for you to be familiar with some concepts before applying. For example, some university graduate-level certificates in data science require you to be knowledgeable about programming, linear algebra, and statistics because they don’t cover those topics in the certificate, whereas the data science certificate by Google covers everything you need to know with no requirement of pre-requisite knowledge.
- Time commitment: While most certificate programs should come in at around 1 year of time commitment, others may be more self-paced, others may be longer, and others may well be shorter. For example, some graduate-level university certificates in data science can be completed in as little as 4 months. Time commitment is not necessarily a commentary on the quality of the program, therefore this criterion is more important for you when you’re determining how long you want to be studying.
- Student reviews: While a certificate program may have all of the above boxes ticked, it may not be that easy to get through or that valuable to its students. Therefore, it’s vital to go through student reviews before signing up for a program to ensure that others have had pleasant experiences in the program. While everyone’s experience is subjective, it’s important to get a general feel for how people perceived the coursework, as well as what their prospects were after completing the program.
Data science certificates worth getting in 2024
Anything from a university
Graduate-level certificates in data science from a university are still the best certificates worth getting in 2024.
Data science is still a poorly defined field where people excel when they have an impressive mix of industry-specific knowledge (a niche, if you will), coupled with a firm grounding in applied statistics and some programming knowledge. Because of this, employers often view university education or work experience coupled with an advanced degree or certificate in data science as the best gamble to take when hiring a new data scientist (or analyst, or engineer, etc.,).
With the trust still in the post-secondary education pipeline, as described above, it’s still most advantageous to get your data science certificate from a university in 2024. Not only are these programs both explicitly and implicitly recognized by employers, but they are also often formed in partnership with local industry leaders to ensure that graduates have the skills sought after by local employers.
Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate
The Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate provides one of the most well-rounded (if not the most well-rounded) online data science certificates on the market. It covers everything from data cleaning to data visualization, giving you the fundamentals needed to conduct data analyses using tools such as R, SQL, and Tableau.
This certificate has several advantages over others from online providers: (1) you can receive college credit to 5 different university programs after certificate completion — this gives you a head start on a degree; (2) you get access to career resources upon completion of the certificate, including resume reviews, interview prep, career support, and the ability to connect with 150+ hiring organizations that are part of Google’s Employer Consortium; and (3) low cost — at USD$39/month through Coursera, completing this course in 6 months will cost $234.
Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate
The Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate certificate is more specialized in content than that provided by Google, focusing strongly on Microsoft technologies. This involves learning the data analysis fundamentals from data cleaning to data visualization, as well as deploying and maintaining deliverables using Microsoft Power BI, and R or Python. This certificate is recognized by employers due to the rigorousness of the final examination, and you will often see this certificate listed by individuals working in the data science field.
The advantage this program has over the one provided by Google is that instruction is free, with a cost of USD $165 for the final examination fee.
Final thoughts
While this list is perhaps smaller than you were expecting, it’s important to note that employers in the data science industry are seeking quality, not quantity when it comes to the education their employees hold. Further, not as many data science certifications are recognized by employers as you might expect.
With time and money of the essence when making your way into the data science field, it’s critical to only consider the certificates that make an impact on employers when they see them listed on your resume. With the rising popularity of data science, a lot of snake oil is available on the market that can trap unsuspecting data science newbies into an expensive and time-consuming trap that won’t yield the job offers the certificate promotes.
As such, the above certificates provide your best opportunity to learn the fundamentals necessary to make a transition into data science in 2024. From there, it’s all up to you as you make your way into this exciting burgeoning field.
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