Becoming A Data Scientist: Corporate and Association Training Programs

A few universities and other organizations have started to offer data science degrees, training, and certificates. Conferences and competitions also exist for people serious about adding credentials as data scientists.

Corporate and Association Training Programs, Conferences and Competitions

Both private companies and professional organizations offer certifications or training. Here are a few of them:

• INFORMS (Operations Research Society): Analytics certificate
• Digital Analytics Association: certificate
• TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute): Courses; focus is on database
• architecture
• American Statistical Association: Chartered statistician certificate
• Data Science Central: Data science apprenticeship
• International Institute for Analytics: More like a think tank. Founded by the famous Tom Davenport (visiting Harvard Professor and one of the fathers of data science)
• Statistics.com: Statistics courses

Fees range from below $100 for a certification with no exam, to a few thousand dollars for a full program.

It is also possible to get data science training at many professional conferences that focus on analytics, big data, or data science, for example:

• Predictive Analytics World
• GoPivotal Data Science
• SAS Data Mining and Analytics
• ACM — Association for Computing Machinery
• IEEE — Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers analytics/big data/data science
• IE Group — Innovation Enterprise Group
• Text Analytics News
• IQPC — International Quality and Productivity Center
• Whitehall Media (Big Data in the UK)

Vendors such as EMC, SAS, and Teradata also offer valuable training. Websites such as Kaggle.com enable you to participate in data science competitions and get access to real data, and sometimes the award winner is hired by a company such as Facebook or Netflix.

For a listing of free training and also universities that offer data science degrees and certificates, access Chapter 3 of Developing Analytic Talent: Becoming a Data Scientist, by Vincent Granville.