Starting in the fall of 2012, the University of Washington will be offering a certificate in Data Science. The program has two sections: one located in Seattle and the other online. The certificate consists of three separate courses each lasting approximately 3 months. Thus the program can be completed in 9 months, and the cost is around $3000.
There are some information sessions later this summer. If you are in Seattle, there is an information session on July 19. If you are interested in the online program, a webinar is scheduled for August 29.
The program content looks quite good. Some of the topics to be covered include: hadoop, NoSQL, machine learning, statistics, graph algorithms, and more. If you are looking to become a data scientist, this just might be the program for you.
I also added this certificate program to my list of College’s offering data science degrees.
Any person who would actually be a good data scientist could and should learn the content in these courses by himself. I understanding getting a degree if you’re doing research, but this is just $3000 paid towards degree inflation. I honestly hope no company pays attention to these degrees to save people thousands of dollars. Literally.
Aidan,
Thanks for commenting. Yes, it would be possible for a person to learn all this information on his/her own. However, a structured program sometimes provides enough motivation for the person to actually do the learning. Also, the curriculum lays out the material to be learned.
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I think $3K for a program that will provide you with the structure to cover the basics is a good deal.
Sure, you can learn the material on your own but one does need some structure – especially when starting down a new path..
Sandeep, I would agree with you. Thanks for commenting.
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From what I’ve read about becoming a data scientist, you need a background or a degree in math, statistics, computer science, etc. In the case of this course, is there any pre-requisite knowledge required ? I am an architect gearing my career towards energy management.
I am not sure about the prerequisites, but the information session is Aug. 29, so you could virtually attended that. http://www.pce.uw.edu/events.aspx?id=10504
Thanks Ryan for sharing this 🙂
Hi Ryan,
I am having a degree in Computer Science, and is currently working on legacy systems for the past 4 years. Will a transition to Data Science be a good move for me ? Would an online certificate course on Data Science, such as being offered by UW or Syracuse University be enough for future prospects ?
Debolin,
I cannot guarantee anything, but I would think a certificate from one of the places you mentioned should be enough to get you into a data science career. If McKinsey Global Institute is correct, there will be a huge shortage of data scientists. Thus, a certificate will definitely be a good thing.
Ryan
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