In my data analysis journey, I’ve done a lot of self learning. I’d say about 75% of it, if not more, has been self paced learning, from the Stats class I took this past fall to the first courses in SQL I dove into when my passion for data was still new.

The Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate is no different, but it is set apart from the rest by the way that it breaks down each course.

This is the first real certification course I’ve pursued, at least in the line of data analysis. Everything else I’ve done have been from free courses, programs, videos, follow-alongs, and the like. This past year I got into Women in Data, and into a structured class that helped tremendously with my understanding of machine learning. To say I went into the certification with some prior knowledge is a bit of an understatement!

That’s not to mention my place in the residency program as well with Women in Data, where I got real world experience working for a stakeholder.

This specific certification is crafted for people of all experiences, down to those who are brand new to data analysis, who may never have seen a spreadsheet before. Google does a phenomenal job of summarizing all of the possible tasks and expectations in these data analysis and data science roles.

So far, I’m in Course 5– Analyze Data to Answer Questions– and I started back in late November, the week of Thanksgiving. This is with a bunch of breaks in the middle for birthdays and holidays. I’ve been taking it one week a day, because I have that kind of time, but each course is set up with the expectation that you’ll handle one week’s set syllabus a week. I do want to mention that each week takes probably a dedicated 2-3 hours to complete.

So far, it’s been rather simple. It’s all been refreshers, but I’ve also learned a lot about BigQuery, and learned that my knowledge of SQL is not half as advanced as I thought it was.

One of my bigger problems with the program overall is that when it comes to things like Google Sheets and BigQuery, the UI is different. I believe this certification came out back in 2021, and you can definitely tell how much the UI has changed since then.

Along those same lines, some of the BigQuery queries have changed around. I’m not sure how else to phrase that. The function itself has changed fundamentally? I spent about 10-20 minutes on a large query that was written out for me, because it kept throwing errors. No matter what I did to fix it, it didn’t get me anywhere. My only regret is that I didn’t search it on Stack Overflow and figure out what the real problem was. At this point I assume I had to remove that line entirely.

Hopefully it was a one-off and I won’t run into that issue again, because I’m about to get into more advanced SQL queries for analysis.

Of all of it, I think I’m most looking forward to working with and learning R. I’ve been a little apprehensive about learning the language because I’m not entirely sure where to start, but with the way the program has been going, I think they’ll do a great job of explaining and teaching the language in an effective, helpful way.

I had been looking at the certification for several months by the time I jumped into it, and honestly, I wish I had jumped into it much sooner. I think this would have helped along my interviews, my ability to put together projects, and my general understanding about using tools as a data analyst.

All that is to say that this certification from Google is an incredible resource on its own. If you do only one program to get started on your journey, make it this one. It is a fabulous launching point not just for analysis, but for data science, data specialization (database management, etc) and data engineering. It has just enough to stoke your curiosity and get you to the point where you can start on projects.

I did mention before in my Beginner’s Guide that the program was free, but you will need to be subscribed to Coursera to access the program, which is $40 USD/month. Overall I’d say it’s worth it, especially if you end up blasting through it like I have been.

I’ll probably make another post when I finish the certification, like I’ve done lately for the projects and programs I’ve gotten into this year. A post mortem. I seem to have a knack for those.

I’ll also be making more posts about my learning so I can trace things back and say, here’s how and when I picked up these skills, and here’s how I’ve been keeping them fresh and up to date. They’re a lot less cohesive and neat than this certification, but I’m sure I’ll find a good way to communicate them.

One more thing that I’m hoping to do soon is release slides and videos of project summaries. That’ll have its own page, and will be released apart from the blogs. I’m pretty excited about that: it’ll give a better, more polished finish to my projects so far.

Next week will probably be a project update and something to do with BigQuery, so stayed tuned for that if you’re interested. Thank you for reading and looking in on my data journey so far.

Until next time, I hope your data cleaning is swift and simple!