Introduction to Big Data

Excellent instructors who are at the top of their game in the industry. Good balance of theory and applied learning, including hands-on exercises with SQL, Spark, and Hadoop. Recommended for newcomers to the field who already have a business background.

This program offers a good introduction to statistics, data science, data management, working with large data sets, analytics theory and big data tools.

As someone who hasn't coded for 10+ years, I was able to pick it up pretty quickly and complete all of the coding via what was taught in the class or tutorials/lab sessions. The program has exposed us to most of the standard tools: SQL, RegEx, R, Watson, Hive, Pig, Spark, Hadoop, etc.. Also, you get exposure to analytics methodologies (clustering, regression, decision trees, machine learning).

The program has been a mix of theory and more practical learning - which helps ensure you really understand the purpose of the tool or method and how to apply it to real-world or business problems.

The program has been a great way for me to build up my knowledge and expertise in big data and machine analytics. I am not a full-time technologist, but work with many, and we now have a common language and tool set to problem solve with together.

This course would also be a great complementary skill set for someone who is already a technologist or already a data analyst who could then take what they learned and build more depth on it through their professional activities.