 Is the Google Data Analytics Certificate actually worth it? This was a highly requested topic, so if you enjoy me making this type of video, go ahead, gently tap that like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera, and let's jump right into it. So I'm gonna be going over all of the important factors for the Google Data Analytics Certificate, and I'm gonna be ranking each of them on a scale from one to 10. So we're gonna talk about the time to completion, how much it costs, the demand, the salary you would expect if you were to get an entry-level position after getting the certificate, the production value, and engagement of the teaching material itself, the chances that the certificate will lend you a job, and the overall value of the certificate in terms of how much it costs versus the value that it gives you. So we're basically gonna cover every single angle I could think of when it comes to evaluating a certificate and seeing if it's worth your time and effort. And in case you weren't aware, this is a certificate hosted on Coursera, and it's basically designed to teach you the entry-level skills you need to land a data analytics job. And they even claim at the top that there is no degree or experience required. So that is a very bold claim, so let's go ahead and jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about is how long it takes to complete. So on the website itself, they say it takes approximately six months to complete with you studying 10 hours per week. So that's approximately 240 total study hours if you were to study those 10 hours per week for six months. However, almost all of the self-reported data reviews and testimonials say that it doesn't take anywhere near six months, typically. For most of the reviews I looked through it ranged from as low as three days to typically somewhere around two to three months. Now the person who was able to get it done in three days was obviously somebody who already had the skills and they were basically just doing the certificate to bolster their resume or something along those lines. But there are many reports of people finishing it in a month and even people doing it part-time can often finish in two to three months. So it doesn't really take all that long, especially if you compare it with something like a boot camp which typically takes somewhere between three and nine months or a college degree which typically takes four to five years in order to get your bachelors. Now to put this in perspective, as somebody who studies education and alternative education and all these things surrounding it pretty much all day long all the time, the fastest service that I've heard of that reliably gets people jobs takes about one month. And that is incredibly rare. I've only seen one service do it and that's because they actually partner directly with companies and they get people interviews. So if you're able to complete the certificate and land your job after two to three months, that is phenomenal. So overall, when it comes to the time to completion, I'm gonna have to give this one a score of nine out of 10. All right, so next we're gonna talk about the cost. And yes, this is very important because there are many different ways of getting educated out there that are incredibly expensive. College costs $80,000. Boot camps typically cost $10,000 or more. Well, it's hosted on Coursera and at the time of recording this video, according to my research, they cost about $39 per month. And by the way, if you do wanna check the course out, I have it linked down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. So if you take six months to finish it, that would be about $234. If you finish it in two months, that's gonna be around $78. So yeah, when you compare this to basically any other way of getting educated cost-wise, there's no comparison. And I know some people are gonna comment down below, oh, you can look everything up on Google. You can get educated for free. Yes, there are many things you can look up on Google, but there are a ton of advantages to having a professional who knows the current trends, knows the current meta, so to speak, tell you exactly what you need to know in order to get hired at companies. So I'll organize for you. There's professionals teaching it. And at the end, you get a certificate that is respected by many companies out there, which we're gonna get into that later. So this is just way, way better from a cost standpoint. This is incredibly cheap. You're not really gonna find anything that has this low of a price point. This one has to get a 10 out of 10 when it comes to cost. Next, we're gonna be talking about demand. Now, we're gonna be talking about the demand of the certificate itself, of course, but overall, we're gonna focus more on the demand of data analytics in general. So when you look at the certificate, they say there's 380,000 US job openings in data analytics. And that's correct, but I think it's actually an understatement. Anything to do with data, data analysis, data engineering, data science, et cetera, is incredibly valuable and it's a highly sought after skill. If you look at LinkedIn and you sort by entry level jobs, you'll see that there's 578,000 job postings that have the word data analysis in them. And BLS doesn't have data analysts specifically. Unfortunately, they don't get specific enough for that, but they do have market research analysts with about a 22% growth rate, which is much faster than average. And this all makes sense. After all, data is now more valuable than oil or gold. And this makes complete sense if you think about it. Let's say you work for a company and you're selling jerseys for your favorite team, which happens to be the Los Angeles Lakers. If you show an ad for Lakers jerseys to a million random people, let's say you get a hundred sales, but you had to spend a lot of money to get those hundred sales and chances are you probably lost money. But if you show that same ad for Lakers jerseys to a million Lakers fans, chances are you might get something more like 10,000 sales. So your return on investment just increased by 100x. People were a hundred times more likely to buy your product and this is exactly what data analysis does for companies. Now the skills that data analysis offers expands into many different jobs as well. A lot of the time accountants, for instance, are learning data analysis skills in order to have vertical growth within their career. Data is also becoming much more industry specific. So even if you don't want to become a data analyst or a business analyst, there's still going to be a massive amount of demand for the skill of data analysis. And so getting the certificate likely will help you out either way. And so when it comes to the demand, I have to give this one a 10 out of 10. Next, we're gonna be talking about salary and this is how much you can expect to make if you are able to land that entry level job as a data analyst or a business analyst. So for the amount of time it takes to get into this, data analysts and business analysts make incredibly good money. So according to the Google Analytics course, job openings in data analytics make about $74,000 and this is a median entry level salary per year. That is absolutely ridiculously good for an entry level job. Now according to Glassdoor, data analysts in general make about 93,000 per year and business analysts make about 95,000. And there are many different options for you in terms of career paths. For instance, you might go down the career path of becoming a principal data engineer and they make about 157,000 a year and you might even become a senior vice president of data engineering and they make about $211,000 a year. And not only can you move into data-specific related jobs, but it's also really good for making horizontal moves as well. So going into different career paths. My friend Richard, who is a product manager that I interviewed on this channel, told me for instance that his number one recommendation for somebody who wants to become a product manager at a major software or tech company is to get into data analytics. So data analytics is incredibly important just about anywhere you go within the company. It's also becoming very important for people who get into digital marketing as well. Next one on the list is going to be the production value of taking the classes and the certificate itself. Now take this part with a grain of salt because it's incredibly subjective. How much you like something has a lot to do with whether you like the personality of the instructors or whether you like the subject itself. But if you look at the reviews, they do tend to be pretty good. So overall, I'm gonna give this one an eight out of 10. Next one on the list is very important. That's going to be the certificates, chances of landing you a job. Now a lot of the time I'm not gonna lie, certificates likely will not land you a job all on their own. And let's be honest, do you even expect them to do that? It's a $39 a month certificate. You know, there's a lot of people who graduate from college who still can't even land jobs and that costs $80,000. So if a $39 a month certificate even gives you a puncher's chance of landing a job, then that's got to be a pretty good value. But with that being said, data analytics is such a highly sought after skill that this certificate actually does have a pretty good chance of landing you an entry level job. Now they claim on the website that there is job opportunities at over 300 different companies that have basically agreed that the Google data analytics certificate curriculum is really good to teach people the skills they need to land that entry level job. On top of that, the network effects of people who have started taking these certificates with Coursera, edX and other companies like that are starting to kick in. It used to be a little bit of a joke or a meme when you saw certificates on people's resumes because just about anybody out there could make up a certificate and it really didn't matter. I mean, I could literally almost just make up my own certificate and then like put it on my own resume. It's almost like a hotel that rates themselves like five golden stars or something along those lines. But with that being said, many, many people who are highly respected within industries are starting to take these certificates and they're seeing the value in them. And so whether you're taking this certificate because you're trying to gain the skills to get a promotion or you're trying to switch into a different career or you're just trying to get an entry level job, these do have a lot of value. And there are tons of reviews and testimonials from people on Reddit and YouTube of people who have gotten jobs just by taking the certificate alone. And on top of that, there is a significant amount of the course that is dedicated to getting you interviews and landing you a job. And on the Coursera website itself, the certificate does have a 4.8 star rating with 61,588 ratings at the time of recording this video. And if you look at the individual courses within the certificate, most of them are rated 4.8 stars but two of them, course five and course six are rated 4.6. But with that being said, is it reasonable to truly expect a $39 a month certificate to reliably land you a job? Probably not for the average person. I think the typical person taking this will actually have to do some outside study or other things to supplement this certificate. But with that being said, I think the main reason that people end up failing and getting a job is because of the fact that they just find out they're not interested in data analysis or becoming a data analyst. And imagine getting a data analytics degree in college and then finding out your fourth or your fifth year that you're not interested and you don't want to be a data analyst after you've already spent $80,000 and like five years of your life. Versus finding out that you're not interested in data analysis after spending maybe a few weeks and $39 on a certificate. So I think you get my point here. Whether you end up getting a job or not, I think this is a phenomenal way to dip your toe into data analytics whether you have any experience or not. So overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of eight out of 10 when it comes to the chances of landing you a job. Next, we're gonna talk about the overall value of the certificate. And what I mean by value is how much you get for the price you pay. So according to Coursera, 75% of Google Certificate graduates in the United States report an improvement in their career trajectory within six months of certificate completion. Now I kind of wish they did this certificate by certificate, they sort of group all Google certs into one, but it is pretty impressive that 75% of people showed those positive outcomes. Now it is relatively well respected right now and it's only gonna get more respected as time goes on. It has become incredibly obvious to companies and basically anyone else who looks into this that college simply cannot keep up with modern skills. Colleges often teach people something that might have been true 20 or 30 years ago but isn't true now. And when a new technology comes out, colleges are way too slow and stuck in the mud to catch up and teach people the most in-demand skills. And so companies came together and they were like, we need to figure out how to solve this problem. And that is why Google and IBM and all these different companies started creating these certificates. They had a ridiculous amount of demand for people who had data analytics skills and nobody to fill those jobs. Now one criticism of this course is it does teach you R instead of Python. And Python is of course very common to see in data analytics roles. So this is not a comprehensive course. So I think one of the main reasons you see some negative reviews on the internet when it comes to certificates is because people go into it with the wrong mindset. And when it comes to comparing certificates, degrees, bootcamps and online courses, that's almost like comparing a hammer to a wrench. If the situation requires you to smash a nail into the board, then a hammer is going to be the best tool to use. And if the situation requires you to tighten a nut or a bolt, then a wrench is gonna be the best tool to use. And so whether a certificate or a bootcamp, et cetera, is gonna be the best choice for you depends on your individual situation. But with that being said, when it comes to the risk that you take with a bootcamp versus college versus an online course versus a certification, the certificate has very little risk. If you go to college for data analytics and then you end up hating it, you just wasted $80,000 and four years of your life. If you take a certificate for data analytics and you end up hating it, you just wasted $39 and a month of your life. So clearly the risk is much, much lower for taking the certificate. And that's why I think these are a fantastic way for you to dip your toe into different subjects. So overall, as long as you understand the value proposition of certificates, the value here is easily a 10 out of 10. Now, when you add everything up and then you divide it, the overall score is 9.17 out of 10. The Google data analytics certificate gets a massive thumbs up from me. I think it is phenomenal how we're seeing all of these different alternatives and competitors to college pop up because college is the right choice in certain situations, but it's not always the right choice. And it seems like our society tries to make everybody go to college when in reality, there are a lot of other really good options. Check this other video out right here. I made it just for you. Go ahead, gently tap that like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera. The job on the video and I will see you next time.