In the past few decades, numerous businesses have incorporated big data into their operations to generate insights, maximize profits, and improve the overall user or client experience. Naturally, this has increased the demand for skilled data analysts across industries, which is why several universities and institutions are introducing specialized courses for data analytics. If you are interested in pursuing a career in data analytics, then your first step should be picking the right training program.

Prioritize – Your first job is to define your long-term and short-term goals. This is crucial as the field of data analytics is vast comprising different profiles such as data scientist, data architects, data mining engineer or business intelligence analyst. Therefore, research on various profiles, so that you can decide which career path is apt for you. Moreover, this will give you a clearer picture of which data analytics course is fit to enroll in.

Take a detailed at the curriculum – This is a crucial part of any course selection process that several students overlook. Since all data analytics courses offer different syllabus, take a hard look at the program structure. Is it a limited to one skill or comprehensive? Is it practical or theoretical? Will it help you achieve your academic and career objectives? Pondering over these questions will help narrow down the most reliable option.

Know your limitations – Your desired career path will demand an understanding of a certain skill-set. Therefore, scrutinize the profile requirements, find if there are any learning gaps and how you can make up for it. For example, if your preferred profile requires an expertise in SQL, then look for data analytics courses that can effectively train you for this skill.

Check the course duration and type – Data analytics courses include bachelor’s, master’s, and short-term courses for both, students and professionals. For instance, if you are a professional who can benefit from a data analytics course, then you should pick a part-time program which has classes after work or weekends. Likewise, you could also choose online data analytics courses if the commuting gets hectic for you.

Meet the total expense of the program – The tuition you will have to incur will vary across courses. Bachelor’s and master’s courses will be comparatively more expensive than the short-term ones, majorly because of the longer duration and curriculum covered. However, even if the program fee is hefty, contemplate if it could help you with high-paying job prospects. You can use financial assistance such as student loans, sponsorships or scholarships to manage your expenses.