While undergraduate and graduate programs are considered the most traditional form of study, there are a number of other options when it comes to studying the key principles that are required for data science. Many of these different options offer advantages over typical degree courses, with the primary one being the significantly cheaper cost. There are different types and lengths of courses that each have different educational focus and will provide the student with different skill sets.
Data Science MOOC’S
MOOC stands for massive open online courses, which are offered for free by various universities and educational institutes all around the world. They allow students to study from anywhere so long as they have an Internet connection and a desire to learn. Although signing up and course content is free there are often some fee’s involved for those looking for credits or certification.
MOOC’s vary in length and allows for flexible part time learning according to the convenience of the student. Classes can be skipped allowing students to focus on the topics that they need or want to learn. Some provide an overview of a wide field of study such as data science, while other focus on specific topics and skills such as machine learning or statistics. Top organizations offering these open courses includes Udacity, MITx, EDx and Coursera.
Top MOOC’s relating to data science include the following:
Intro to Data Science offered by Coursera and University of Washington
Intro to Statistics (Making decisions based on data) offered by Udacity
Learning from Data offered by CalTech
Other Online Data Science Courses
There are many more forms of courses and programs available online. Many Universities now offer their degree programs as well as shorter courses online to allow distant and part time students to take part. There are also a number of online platforms that allows people to teach and study over the Internet. Udemy offers one of the top examples of this form of study. Courses available that relate to data science include The Zen of Data – Stats for Analytics, Data Analysis with R and An Intro to Machine Learning with Web Data. These courses have a small cost that generally falls under $100.