Where to Find Data Science Classes

Data Science is such a hot field (the Harvard Business Review once famously called it sexy) that training opportunities abound, to the extent that the array of options may be a bit dazzling at first. The choices include professional schools, colleges and universities, on-demand learning platforms, and, yes, even YouTube tutorials. That makes for a lot of modalities through which to sort until you settle upon the one that’s right for you, but a bit of systematic analysis should help you end up in the right place.

Noble Desktop and Other Professional Training Centers

There can be little question that the most efficient, most bang-for-your-buck, and fastest route to drink from the spring of data science knowledge is a bootcamp or certificate offering from a professional training center devoted to creating job-ready candidates in the shortest amount of time. These classes are fast-paced and will definitely keep you on your toes. The shortcomings inherent in such an arrangement primarily reside in the short span of time that these classes take, and the way they don’t give you time to let the material settle into your brain. These courses also generally skirt the math requirement people studying data science in college have to complete. That will, admittedly, narrow your view of data science overall, although it is possible to start a career in data science without too terribly much knowledge of advanced mathematics and statistics.

A great way to consider the plethora of classes offered by these professional training centers is Noble Dekstop’s Classes Near Me tool, which will bring up live on-the-ground classes in your locality (if they exist) as well as a robust selection of online classes that can be taken from anywhere the internet reaches. Most training centers have switched to online education in all but the very largest markets, and, while you might have qualms about committing to a class emanating from a virtual classroom, you’ll soon discover that the convenience of being able to study where you are rather than rushing around town to a class that meets every day of the week, or evenings after a long day’s work when all you want to do is go home. Classes Near Me is definitely worth consulting, if only to get an idea of the lay of the bootcamp land.

Colleges and Universities

The most classic way to learn data science is to get a bachelor’s degree in the field, or, barring that, in statistics, mathematics, or computer science. You can even proceed beyond any of those to a master’s degree in data science, which is often the level at which most future data scientists are getting hired. Although it might be academic overkill, you can also obtain a PhD in data science, although many who continue that far generally remain in academe and continue in research, often while teaching. There’s no denying that a BS will set you up for a career in data science, but the drawbacks are considerable and need to be taken into account before you embark on an undergraduate data science program.

Four-year college degrees are infamous for devouring enormous amounts of time and money. The time commitment is sizable: it’s the length of a presidential term, or the time between summer Olympics, or that between birthdays if you happen to have been born on February 29, and, very arguably, those are four years you won’t get back that you could have spent starting a career. The other commodity that you will need to surrender in tremendous amounts when you attend college is money. Tuition costs have become exorbitant, and the prevalent option of going deeply into debt in order to get a degree you might not need is one that is often taken far too lightly, as, if things don’t turn out the way you planned, you may well be in store for a lifetime of being in hock to the government.

Going to a public university in your state of residence lightens some of that financial burden, but not all of it. Locating four-year data science undergraduate programs, in- or out-of-state, can be done very effectively by consulting a combination of the knowledge held in the internet and that held in the guides to colleges and universities that are published every year. That will equip you with almost an overabundance of information on the subject.

Coursera, Udemy, and Other On-Demand Platforms

Online providers such as Coursera and Udemy offer asynchronous classes that are basically a series of curated video tutorials that you watch at your leisure. While the convenience of such a setup cannot be denied, there are drawbacks that equally cannot be denied. Even the most conscientious of on-demand course providers can’t insure their classes against the onward march of data science itself, and, thus, against the information in their video tutorials going, nolens volens, past its best-by date. Although some of the more expensive asynchronous classes do offer human mentors who can take an interest in your progress, the general rule is that you’re on your own with an on-demand class, and, thus, free to lead yourself down who knows how many garden paths of misinformation. To learn a topic well enough to build a career, you’re going to need a human teacher and a live class.

Still, for people who don’t have the time for a live class, an on-demand class may be their only way to get to learn about data science. In this sense, these classes are better than nothing, although you should do some research about job placement statistics before you commit to an asynchronous bootcamp.

Finding a self-paced course shouldn’t prove overly complicated, as there are plenty of them out there from which to choose. Udemy and Coursera are the obvious places to start, although a quick search of the internet will turn up everything from university continuing education programs to professional training centers to other specialized platforms. You’ll also discover that prices vary wildly with this type of class: some are extremely affordable, while some can cost as much as a live bootcamp. 

YouTube and Other Free Resources

Can you learn data science for free? Resources that will cost you nothing are readily accessible on YouTube. One of the videos on that platform claims that it will teach you data science in five minutes (note that the video is already five years old at time of writing.) Others are at least somewhat more realistic and promise to teach you the subject in ten, eleven and a half, or nineteen and a half hours, all of which are significantly shorter than even the shortest bootcamp. Since anyone can be a maven on YouTube, you really have no way of knowing what you’re getting with these classes, although they’re not all bad, and generally mean well, even when the teachers have no pedagogical skills worth mentioning.

You can’t, however, expect to learn everything you need to know to start a career in data science purely from free tutorials strewn across the internet. You simply cannot get something for nothing. That’s not to say that these tutorials are entirely useless: if you’re considering making an investment in a data science bootcamp or other course, you might do well to scope out the terrain using one of these free classes. You have nothing to lose, and actually quite a bit to gain, both in terms of a modest leg-up on your first day of a paid class and sparing yourself a pointless investment learning a subject for which you lack aptitude, sympathy, or interest.