Update 1/15/23: I wrote this blog post back in 2018 when I was just starting in my first job in technology. What I’m reminded of more than anything when I look back at this post is how important it is to invest in learning. At the time of writing this, I was “on the Data Scientist journey.” Now, I’m a Data Scientist. And I’m still learning every day. The importance of this investment will never go away.

The Journey and the Opportunity

As I’ve begun to embark on the “Becoming a Data Scientist” path, I’ve also readily acknowledged the importance of taking up coursework and educational opportunities which would have a direct impact on my day to day responsibilities. Being new to the Information Technology world comes with a host of “opportunities for growth” as the opportunists call them, or “challenges” as most call them. Some are as simple as not understanding the jargon that is used, and others involve limited exposure to very complex concepts that may take years to master.

Each day, I work with several technologies to perform my responsibilities. I may be working with SQL Developer to understand why billings in a given month are not showing up as expected, working in Oracle Business Intelligence to build out an executive sales dashboard, or I might be using Excel to do some simple data validation. However, on the first day of my job in this world, unfortunately I knew very little about any of it. I remember the first time somebody told me “just throw that in a pivot table” (an excel reference) and just sort of going cross-eyed and trying to find a way to turn my screen away so that I could Google what that meant without being judged too prematurely.

With that in mind, these challenges have presented some great opportunities for me to develop some basic business analysis and toolkit knowledge which will stick with me throughout my career. I’m going to outline below some of the courses I took to help me get up to speed, along with a brief synopsis of each and my overall take on the course.

Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business

Link: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/excel-mysql

This Coursera Specialization (sequence of courses) is designed to be a one-stop shop to learn a valuable set of tools applicable across a wide variety of industries. You start off by learning about the basic metrics that businesses care about the most. You then dive into a thorough course on Microsoft Excel, learning a lot about basic functionality as well as data modeling. Next, you begin working in Tableau, which is an amazing and powerful (user-friendly as well) tool for visualizing data. Lastly, there is a course on working with Big Data in MySql, which is an open-source database management software (DBMS). Fortunately for me, I had the foresight to start off with this course, as it seemed to hit many of the things I was going to be doing day to day.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYBODY WHO IS JUST GETTING STARTED WITH DATA ANALYTICS AS A FIRST STEP ON THE JOURNEY. IT HELPED ME IMMENSELY BEGINNING TO THINK ANALYTICALLY IN A CORPORATE SETTING.

Data Warehousing for Business Intelligence Specialization

Link: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/data-warehousing

For anybody who is just getting started in a Business Intelligence (B.I.)/ Data Warehousing role, there is probably no better place to start than with this Coursera Specialization. I cannot overstate how much value I took away from this set of courses. You start off with “Database Management Essentials,” which gives you a solid foundation in the tools and techniques Business Intelligence. You are introduced to Structured Query Language (SQL) and Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) which are pivotal aspects of Data Warehousing. The second course is “Data Warehouse Concepts, Design, and Data Integration.” It builds on the concepts in the first course, adding complexity, and also introduces data integration/ engineering. You use Pentaho, and open-source data integration software to create workflows, understanding how data gets extracted from tables, transformed, and then loaded into a data warehouse. The third course, “Relational Database Support for Data Warehouses,” builds further into using SQL analytic functions to answer business questions. The fourth course, “Business Intelligence Concepts, Tools, and Applications” gets you up to speed working with MicroStrategy, a B.I. tool that allows you to build analyses and dashboards. You also gain more familiarity with how tables in a Data Warehouse are flattened (some redundancy allowed to maximize business value and query performance), as compared to a normalized architecture in a transaction system. The last course is the Capstone Project, which I was unable to do, as I had only audited all of the courses up to this point.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS SERIES FOR ANYBODY SPECIFICALLY WORKING IN A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE OR DATA WAREHOUSING ROLE. FOR PEOPLE WORKING AS ANALYSTS, THE SPECIALIZATION REVIEWED ABOVE, “EXCEL TO MYSQL: ANALYTICS TECHNIQUES FOR BUSINESS” WOULD BE A BETTER FIT. THIS B.I.-CENTRIC SPECIALIZATION IS FULL OF VALUABLE INFORMATION, BUT CAN AT TIMES BE DRY AND FEEL UNEXCITING. HOWEVER, IF YOU GO THROUGH THE MATERIAL AND WORK ON THE PROBLEM SETS, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD GROUNDING IN HOW THE B.I. WORLD WORKS AND CAN BE A CONTRIBUTOR TO A B.I. TEAM RIGHT OFF THE BAT.

The Complete Oracle SQL Certification Course

Link: https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-oracle-sql-certification-course/learn/v4/overview

This course is designed as an all-in-one SQL course, geared toward helping you go from beginner to expert (certification ready). The course has a gentle introduction to the topic and builds up slowly to more advanced topics. Based on my experience in the course, there is nothing out of reach for a beginning SQL programmer. This can be considered a good or bad thing based on your background. As I took this course relatively quickly after starting in my role, this probably had the biggest impact on my ability to develop in SQL confidently.

IF YOU HAVE A GOOD GRASP OF SQL CONCEPTS, YOU MAY FIND THE EXERCISES A LITTLE BIT TOO SIMPLE, BUT GENERALLY, THE CONTENT THROUGHOUT IS VERY VALUABLE AND USEFUL.

Business Analysis Fundamentals – 2018

Link: https://www.udemy.com/business-analysis-ba/learn/v4/content

This course is a great introduction to all things Business Analysis. From different methodologies like Waterfall and Agile, to requirements gathering techniques, you leave the course with a greater empowerment to manage projects and deliver on solutions. The course is very easy to follow, provides many sample templates that can be used in actual projects, and covers a wide range of topics. I believe whether you work as an actual Business Analyst or not, if you do any project management work, you can benefit from this course. I took a lot from the course in terms of appropriate documentation, running effective meetings, and more.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS COURSE TO ANYBODY WHO IS NEW TO BUSINESS ANALYSIS AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT. FOR THE MORE EXPERIENCED, IT MAY ONLY SERVE AS A REFRESHER AS THE CONTENT IS INTRODUCTORY IN NATURE.

Useful Excel for Beginners

Link: https://www.udemy.com/useful-excel-for-beginners/learn/v4/content

This course is designed to give you a thorough introduction to the use of Excel. It covers beginning topics like basic Excel navigation, entering text, formatting, etc. The level of complexity increases slightly with the use of formulas and pivot tables, but generally speaking, the course would be a good first Excel course for just about anybody. I firmly believe that Excel is one of the best tools that anybody in the corporate world, whether administrative personnel or data scientist, can master. This course helps you understand ways to use Excel very efficiently, including quite a few valuable “hotkeys” and other shortcuts.

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN THE BASICS OF EXCEL OR REFRESH YOUR SKILLS, THIS IS A GREAT COURSE TO TAKE. IT’S ACCESSIBLE FOR ANY AUDIENCE AND WILL TAKE YOU FROM A SIMPLE UNDERSTANDING OF EXCEL THROUGH INTERMEDIATE-LEVEL USE.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE 11g)

Link: https://www.udemy.com/oracle-business-intelligence-enterprise-edition-fundamentals/learn/v4/content

This was the first course that I took as part of this “Bridging” or “Getting Up to Speed” series of courses. I actually used it to help me prepare for my initial interview so that I could, at least, speak intelligently about the role I was going to take on. This course helped me get started with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (“OBIEE”). The course starts out with installation, configuration and basic administrative tasks. It then goes through working with the metadata repository and building out analyses and dashboards. The course finishes with an explanation of security, and then working with OBIEE in Linux.

THE COURSE WAS DECENT, AND COMPETING COURSES IN THE MARKETPLACE ARE LIMITED. HOWEVER, I DID FEEL LIKE THE COURSE LACKED A BIT OF DEPTH. IT’S ENOUGH TO GET YOU UP AND RUNNING BUT WON’T NECESSARILY LEAVE YOU FEELING LIKE YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT COMPETENCE TO HANDLE MORE ADVANCED OBIEE TASKS. HOWEVER, TO BE FAIR, I USE OBIEE ON A DAILY BASIS, AND THE SAME ‘LACK OF DEPTH’ COMMENT CAN BE MADE OF MANY COURSES.

Microsoft Excel 2013 Advanced

Link: https://www.udemy.com/advanced-microsoft-excel-2013-online-excel-course/learn/v4/overview

This course covers a wide range of Excel topics from the Intermediate to Advanced level. It covers things like mathematical functions, logical operators (if, and, or, including nested logic), lookups (vertical and horizontal), sparklines, time values and operators, outlining, scenarios/views, text manipulation, arrays, auditing, pivot tables/charts, and macros. Yes, it was a lot of material. Some of it is extremely valuable and I will likely use on a very regular basis. Logical operators, functions, text manipulation and pivot tables and charts are EXTREMELY useful and I encourage everybody who uses Excel to have a good foundation in these topics. Some of the other topics may only come up from time to time. One thing I’ve realized, however, is that understanding the capabilities of Excel allows you to think about approaching difficult problems more pragmatically, even when you are not using Excel. Because much of Excel’s functionality is centered around what you could consider logical and algorithmic thinking, this course will make you a stronger quantitative analyst in a general sense.

THIS COURSE WAS EXTREMELY WELL-ORGANIZED AND EASY TO FOLLOW FOR THOSE WITH INTERMEDIATE EXCEL SKILLS. THIS IS LIKELY NOT THE BEST COURSE TO START OFF WITH IF YOU’RE A BEGINNER. I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS COURSE FOR ANYBODY LOOKING TO LEVEL-UP IN EXCEL USAGE, ALTHOUGH NOT PARTICULARLY FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO LEARN MACROS OR VISUAL BASIC FOR APPLICATIONS (VBA) AS THE COVERAGE IS VERY LIMITED ON THESE TOPICS.

Informatica Tutorial: Beginner to Expert Level

Link: https://www.udemy.com/informatica-tutorial-beginner-to-expert-level/learn/v4/overview

This course, to be frank, was quite the bear. 35.5 hours of video, not including the 20 or so hours on top of that I spent working through exercises with the video paused, was a huge undertaking for somebody who doesn’t use this technology as part of my specific role (although I do contribute occasionally to our Data Engineering team). This course covers tons of material, and I believe as the course title says, it will take you through from beginner to expert, albeit only from a content standpoint (practice exercises are somewhat sparse and at times disorganized). The course gave me the requisite skills to take up a couple Data Engineering projects at work on my own and see them through from start to finish, which was quite empowering. However, Informatica is a tool that takes years to master, so you can’t expect to actually be an expert after completing it.

I ENJOYED MOST OF THE COURSE AND TOOK A LOT FROM IT, INCLUDING SOME REINFORCEMENT OF ALGORITHMIC THINKING, AS WORKING WITH TOOLS TO PERFORM EXTRACT, TRANSFORM, LOAD (ETL) TASKS ARE AN EXERCISE IN LOGIC. HOWEVER, THE COURSE WAS QUITE SCATTERED AND NON-LINEAR IN PARTS. FOR EXAMPLE, YOU WOULD HAVE AN EXERCISE TO DO AT TIMES, WHERE A DATABASE TABLE NEEDED TO BE CREATED IN ADVANCE, AND THERE WAS NO GUIDANCE. INSTEAD, YOU HAD TO PAUSE THE SCREEN AND GO TRY TO CREATE WHATEVER OBJECT YOUR PROJECT WAS DEPENDENT ON. GREAT COURSE, BUT IF YOU GET FRUSTRATED EASILY WITH DISORGANIZATION AND/ OR HAVING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT ON YOUR OWN AT TIMES, IT MAY NOT BE THE BEST FIT.