10 Best Big Data Analytics Courses to Enroll in 2024

With the rise of the data-driven market, data-related professional skills in Big Data, machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing in demand.

Today, you can easily find many job openings requiring big data analytics as one of the required skills potential candidates must have before applying.

As a result, analysts and even other professionals such as consultants, marketers, and product developers are honing their skills by enrolling in online big data analytics courses. 

However, not all courses are equally good. Therefore, I have put together a list of the best big data analytics courses and online training to join if you want to grow your data management and/or analytics skills.

Best big data analytics courses

Let us now go through my picks for the ten best online big data analytics courses you can enroll in today.

Data Analyst Nanodegree (Udacity)

Udacity’s Data Analyst Nanodegree course will give you the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to build a career in big data analytics. The course covers both theoretical and practical aspects and also includes regular one-on-one mentor calls, an active student community, and highly effective career support services.

The program is an especially good choice for students who have working experience with Python (NumPy and Pandas in particular) and SQL programming. However, you needn’t be discouraged if you lack these prerequisites because you can go for the similarly structured beginner-level nanodegree, “Programming for Data Science “, in that case. The beginner-level program only covers what you require – the basics of Python programming from a data science perspective.

Business Analytics Specialization (Coursera)

Coursera’s five-course Business Analytics Specialization series aims to teach students how to make data-driven business decisions in finance, human resources, marketing, and operations using big data. It was created by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is divided into four discipline-specific courses (accounting analytics, customer, operations, and people). Its fifth and final course is dedicated to a capstone project.

The Specialization is taught with the help of readings and videos. Experts test your knowledge via compulsory quizzes and also allow you to participate in discussion forums. At the very end of the course, you need to complete a Capstone Project designed in conjunction with Yahoo. One needs around 40 hours to complete the entire Specialization; thus, students can finish the program in just six months by spending just three hours per week learning.

Also read: 10 Best Machine Learning Courses for 2024

Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization (Coursera)

Offered by Duke University and hosted by Coursera, Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization is a beginner-friendly course that helps students learn how to obtain as much information as possible from the data they already possess. The program is divided into five courses and begins by teaching you the best practices for using big data analytics to make a business more competitive. After that, it proceeds to classes on Excel, MySQL, and Tableau.

At the end of each course, you will have to work on a project. For example, at the end of the third course, you must give a five-minute presentation on how a business can increase the number of tests users complete. The final course is dedicated to the Capstone Project (sponsored by Airbnb). As part of this project, you need to make a recommendation on how a business can improve its profits. Every year, ten students receive feedback on their projects from data scientists working at Airbnb.

Become a Data Engineer (Udacity)

This nanodegree program from Udacity is one of the best courses for data engineers. It is designed to help you learn how to design data models, automate data pipelines, build data warehouses and data lakes, and work with huge datasets. At the end of the program, you will get to work on real-world projects.

By joining the program, you will get a chance to work on real-world projects from industry experts and will receive feedback on those projects from experienced reviewers. You will receive technical mentor support as well, along with a Github review and LinkedIn profile review. Anyone who has intermediate-level knowledge of Python & SQL should consider joining this program.

Big Data with PySpark (DataCamp)

Big Data with PySpark is a skill track offered by Datacamp that aims to teach you Apache Spark. It teaches students the fundamentals of Big Data via PySpark, how to clean data with Apache Spark in Python, and gritty details that data scientists generally spend the bulk of their time on – data wrangling and feature engineering.

By enrolling, you will also learn how to get data into Spark and proceed to delve into the three fundamental Spark Machine Learning algorithms- Linear Regression, Logistic Regression or Classifiers, and creating pipelines. After that, you will discover how to build recommendation engines using Alternating Least Squares in PySpark.

Data Engineering, Big Data, and Machine Learning on GCP Specialization (Coursera)

This specialization program from Coursera will give you a reliable, hands-on introduction to designing and building data pipelines on the Google Cloud Platform. After joining the program, you will learn how to design data processing systems, analyze data, build end-to-end data pipelines, and derive insights with the help of demos, presentations, and hands-on labs.

The five-course series will also help you learn how to process batch and streaming data by implementing autoscaling data pipelines on Cloud Dataflow, manage your data pipelines with Data Fusion and Cloud Compose, and use Google BigQuery to derive business insights from colossal datasets. Also, you will earn shareable course certificates and get access to practice quizzes and graded programming assignments.

Big Data Analytics in Healthcare (Udacity)

Big Data Analytics in Healthcare is a free course from Udacity that covers the characteristics of medical data and the associated data mining challenges in dealing with such data. It will teach you a wide range of algorithms and systems for big data analytics. It also focuses on studying those big data techniques in the context of concrete healthcare analytic applications such as computational phenotyping, patient similarity, and predictive modeling. 

The course will also deal with big data technologies such as and Hadoop, MapReduce, and Spark. It is a great option for students who know basic machine learning and data mining concepts such as classification and clustering and have robust programming and system skills in Java, Python, and Scala.

Modern Big Data Analysis with SQL Specialization (Coursera)

If you want to gain the vital skills needed to query big data with modern distributed SQL engines, then this specialization from Coursera is apt for you. The best part of this course is that it will introduce you to a newer breed of SQL engine – distributed query engines Hive, Impala, Presto, and Drill.

Hive and Impala are open-source SQL engines that can efficiently query huge datasets. Another advantage of this program is that it provides excellent preparation for the Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Data Analyst certification exam. It consists of three courses:

• Foundations for Big Data Analysis with SQL
• Analyzing Big Data with SQL
• Managing Big Data in Clusters and Cloud Storage

You will earn a certificate after completing all of these courses.

Data Analyst with R (DataCamp)

DataCamp’s Data Analyst with R program features crisp learning materials curated by data industry experts. It aims to help you get your dream job in data analysis regardless of how much free time you have to study. It consists of 19 data science analytics courses carefully chosen by industry experts to help you start a bright new career in data science.

With each course being about four hours long, you will require about 77 hours to complete the entire track. At the end of the track, you will be able to successfully manipulate and analyze data using R.

Data Science Specialization (Coursera)

Data Science Specialization, offered by Coursera in conjunction with the prestigious John Hopkins University, is a ten-course program that aims to help you understand the entire data science pipeline at a basic level. Although everyone is welcome sign up for the course, students should at least have beginner-level experience in Python and some familiarity with regression.

The curriculum is taught through videos and complementary readings, and students’ knowledge is tested via auto-graded practice quizzes and peer-graded assignments. The program wraps up with a hands-on project that gives students a chance to create a usable data product.

Big data and big data analysis are promising careers with a lot of potential. I hope these online courses will help you get started with your journey and serve as the best resources for learning for you.