I’m an industry advisor to the University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education, and I’ve been pleased to help shape the courses for adults who want to break into careers in data, or who simply want to understand data to help them progress in their current roles.
I’m pleased to announce that the University of Washington are running a Foundations of Data Analysis course, starting in January 2020. In this 10-week course, you’ll learn how to understand and analyze data. We’ll start with fundamental data-related concepts, terminology and ethical considerations. You’ll learn how to articulate business problems and identify required data. Using Microsoft Excel and SQL, you’ll practice gathering, cleaning and organizing data. Finally you’ll use Tableau to effectively describe, analyze and visualize data.
The course starts January 26, 2020. To find out more, mark January 7 in your calendar, because the University will be holding an online information session with Marcelo Guerra Hahn, who’ll be teaching the class.
I’m often asked how people can get started, and I recommend trustworthy university courses like this one. You can be assured of great, original content that is well-thought-out and high quality; no ‘plagiarism disguised as research’ here! This is the real thing, taught by real experts.
A university qualification has longevity and this is one way to make a better choice for yourself and your career. If you read the 7 Habits of Successful People, one of the habits is ‘sharpening the saw’. It means that you are focusing on continuous improvement and renewal, and this is something I’ve personally been doing since I was at school. Since this is a ten week course, it gives you the opportunity to do a digestible taster in data analysis, but it is still a meaningful amount of time that you will learn new skills.
Hopefully that will whet your appetite! If you sign up, I’d love to know what you think.