Course: Data Science Specialization on Coursera

Surprise came to my mailbox today morning. Coursera announced new type of study: Specialization.

Specializations are new multi-course programs. In case of Data Science Specialization you will take 9 separate courses with signature track for $49 and earn certificate. And complete track you can finish with capstone project which is another $49. So, if you wanna be certified for Specialization you need finish 9 certified courses and do final project. In total you will pay $490, but it is in 10 separated payments. Great thing is all of these courses are under patronage of Johns Hopkins University which I hope ensures quality. I need to say that based on my experience with Computing for Data Analysis course which is done by this university as well, it has really good quality!

Course: Computing for Data Analysis

When I signed to course Computing for Data Analysis on Coursera (since mid of 2nd week I am doing Signature track which is more challenging). I did not expect that it should be so time consuming and so tough. It is. But this strictness doesn't allow me to go just over the surface, I need to go deep down and really learn R language. Which I actually good. I am lazy from nature, but who isn't :-).

Looking for first hands on experience

Last week I was quite busy with MongoDB course. And even though I have plenty work with final exam which contains 10 separate works I am little bit fed up of databases at all. No matter if NoSQL or SQL which I work with really intensively in last week before Christmas.

I moved my sight to the programming language and was looking for some practical hands on experience. I have been lucky and found Data Mining: Discovering and Visualizing Patterns with Python, when I was looking for new articles and resources about data science. When I found this I was so excited! It's like kill many data science skills with one stone. I can play with Python instead of the database, work with new data and visualize it. Good, let's see how it works.