Hi Everyone,
I usually shy away from writing long articles. Mostly because I feel I do not have anything new to offer as of now. Ideally, I would like to share my insights and knowledge if and when it helps. I’m working towards it and building my skill set to be more useful to my community. I would like to make a start by telling you guys about my experience with Google Data Analytics Professional Certification.
So I just finished the specialization and received my Certificate of completion. It tells me that now I’m a Google Certified Data Analyst, that I now have an upgraded skillset which includes R, Tableau, SQL, Excel to name a few. It tells that, this certification had 8 courses that give an excellent overview of a Data Analyst’s work. “It prepares you not only for the Job but for the Role.”
It teaches you the technical skills required for the work and the non-technical/ soft skills, both of which together makes an Excellent Data Professional.
But, all this sounds very robotic isn’t it, I just explained the curriculum. You can get that anywhere, I wanted to share my personal experience with this course and how it helped me during a very challenging phase in my life. For that, we need to go back to June, when I first stumbled upon this course. My Father, Me and my sister had recovered from COVID in May, it was literally the toughest phase of my life. My Father was hospitalised for more than 10 days, I couldn’t see or meet him and I felt helpless, as I couldn’t do anything for my family. Just sit there and watch them go through this. Like every young man, my Father is also my Hero, seeing your Hero like that breaks you to the core. I vividly remember staring at my phone and thinking whom do I call, when we had to get Remdesivir for his treatment and I was clueless. All my life, no matter what, I had my Hero to save me, just a phone call away.
As they say “Tough times don’t last, Tough people, do” and by Mahadev’s blessings we all recovered. Then comes June, It was the last month of my notice period in my previous company, I was not sure what the future holds. I took the leap of Faith and completed my notice period and left my Job. Although I had a job offer in my hand, due to COVID restrictions my joining got postponed. I was very uncertain about everything, Imposter Syndrome didn’t help either.
At this point, I thought to myself “Doing the job before you get the job is a great way to get the job.”. The only positive I have in my life right now is a chance to analyse this problem and find a solution. Isn’t it what I am supposed to be doing as a Data/Business Analyst?
Problem — “How do you make the most of this situation, when everything seems to be out of your control”
Solution- “Utilise this time to upskill yourself and advance your current skills”
This is when I found Google’s Brilliant Offering…
…Truly speaking, this course for me was an escape. Escape from all the uncertainty and self-doubt. All I wanted at that time was to submerge myself into work and not think about anything. I guess Escapism is my coping mechanism, I cant not speak for everyone but it works for me (at least till now it has 😉). And what better to be lost into than an unknown territory with so many gems and treasures to be found the most precious of which was learning R. I was so ecstatic about getting my hands dirty with coding.
The course to me was very welcoming of everyone’s background and skillset. They literally teach you everything from scratch and builds up to create a great Data skillset. All of the instructors were very friendly and motivating. Especially when people use to open up and share their personal Data journey and struggles it felt very personal and inclusive. I always felt as if I was part of a huge community that genuinely cared for each other.
This course introduced me to Kaggle, and I can’t be more thankful.
It is a Data nerd’s paradise. Especially with the huge resources, tools, competitions, it is the best place to grow as a Data professional.
Google has always been my mentor & best friend, and this post is just to show how much I cherish and appreciate all that the company does for millions of kids just like me.
Thank You Google & Coursera. ❤️
I would suggest anybody who wants to start their Data journey to take up this course. Please feel free to reach out to me if you think I can be of any help.
Love,
Shourya
