 Is the IBM Data Analyst Certificate actually worth it? That's what we're gonna be talking about today. So this is a certification hosted on Coursera that was created by the multi-billion dollar company IBM. And as it says on the main page, you can unlock your potential in data analytics, build job ready skills for an in-demand career as a data analyst, and no degree or prior experience is required. And in this video, I'm gonna be ranking from one to 10 important elements of this certificate, such as the time to completion, the cost, the demand for the careers you might go into, the salary for the careers you might go into, the production value or engagement of the course, the chances that the course lands you a job, what value the course offers you, and then I'm gonna give it an overall score out of 10. And I'm going to let you know whether I think it's worth it for you or not, or what type of person I think it would be worth it for. So if you appreciate me doing videos like this, go ahead, gently tap that like button, and let's jump into it right now. So there's actually going to be nine courses within this certification. And the first one is going to be introduction to data analytics. The second course is Excel basics for data analytics. Course three is data visualizations and dashboards with Excel and Cognos. Course four is Python for data science, AI and development. Course five is Python project for data science. Six is databases and SQL for data science with Python. Seven is data analysis with Python. Eight is data visualization with Python. And nine is IBM data analyst capstone project. So most of these courses are ranked fairly well with the top one being 4.8, and then the worst rank being 4.5 stars, which is still pretty good. Now let's go ahead and talk about the time to completion. So they claim you can get this done in about four months with three hours of study per week. They also claim that it's 100% self-paced, which basically means you can study it anytime you want. And of course it's all online so you can study it from any location that you want as long as you have a laptop and an internet connection. So they claim you can get it done in about four months. Typically, especially with self-reported data, you can usually do it even a little bit faster than that, something around one to three months. And if you compare that to the obvious other forms of education, which of course are going to be universities as well as boot camps, it's much faster. So for instance, a data analytics boot camp will likely take you between three to 12 months and a college degree is going to take 5.1 years on average. So the comparison here is pretty obvious. This is a much, much faster way to learn something like data analytics. Of course it is in apples to oranges comparison. They're not going to be exactly the same. And we'll get into that a little bit later on in the video. But overall, when it comes to the time to completion, this one is going to get a 10 out of 10. Next, let's go ahead and talk about the cost. So a college degree in the United States is gonna cost anywhere between 80 to $100,000 on average. A boot camp is probably gonna cost $10,000 or more. So how much does this certificate cost? Well, it costs about $39 a month in the United States of America. Now, if you're watching this from somewhere else in the world, it may be a different amount. So the geolocation is going to be a little bit different, but it's probably going to be less than $39, if anything. If you click the link down in the pinned comment as well as the description below, it will likely tell you how much it costs depending on your location. So Coursera does cost $39 a month. And if you're able to get this one done in say three months, for instance, that's about $120. So $120 versus 10,000 for a boot camp versus 80 to $100,000 for a college degree. I think you're probably starting to see why these certificates get so much attention on the internet. Now, on top of that, there is a seven day free trial. So you can actually try out Coursera for seven days without having to pay. And on top of that, if for whatever reason you can't afford the monthly fee, there are scholarships and financial aid opportunities that are offered. So you can actually just go ahead and apply for financial aid and a lot of people end up getting it. Now, please don't abuse that, leave it for the people who actually need it. So for this person, they said, I am currently doing both. Actually, I applied for financial aid for both and got approved. I highly recommend people who can't afford or don't have the extra money to spend. Please try the financial aid feature. They really value your approach if you really want to learn. That's amazing. Now, another thing that's great about this cost, and this is something that a lot of people don't really talk about, is it's not only the money that you are risking. $39 a month, that's really not much, especially compared to every other way of getting educated. Two other really big things that you're actually going to risk is time and effort. And what ends up happening to a ton of people is they'll end up going to college for a few years. They realize the major they're taking is kind of useless. It's not gonna get them a job. And so they'll drop out and then they just wasted all of that time. And many people who do end up finishing college end up changing their major like five times. So you really aren't risking all that much time, effort, or money when it comes to taking these certificates, which is awesome. So for that reason, I'm gonna give this one a 10 out of 10 when it comes to cost. Now, don't think I'm gonna give this 10 out of 10 for everything. Actually, I'm gonna give it some lower ratings very quickly. Next, we're gonna be talking about demand. So this is gonna be the demand for the types of careers that you would likely go into with this certificate. So they claim on the homepage, there's 123,000 in-demand job openings in data analytics. And they claim that 42% of certificate grads started a new career. Now that is pretty vague. They could have started a new career at McDonald's or Starbucks, not really sure about their methodology there. Towards datascience.com says there's about 72,000 openings for data analysts in the United States. And some common job titles that you would likely go for after you got this certificate are going to be data analyst, associate data analyst, junior data analyst, finance analyst, operations analyst, data technician, business performance analyst or marketing analyst. So if you go on LinkedIn, you go to jobs, you search data analyst, and you sort by entry level positions only, it shows about 157,000 results. So there are a ton of positions open for data analysts. For associate data analysts, there's 140,000 results. For research analysts, there's 14,600 results. For junior data analysts, there's 140,000 results. For data technician, there's 19,000 results. And for marketing analysts, there is 15,000 results. And if you look at BLS, there are 740,000 jobs available for something like a market research analyst, and it's growing at 22%, which is much faster than average. Now you have to understand with BLS, they typically group together a bunch of different careers. But that 22% growth rate is amazing. Now, one thing you do have to talk about that balances things out just a little bit because these numbers look awesome is how easy it is for you to actually land that entry level job. I have found that there is a little bit more of a barrier to entry with a career like data analyst than there is for something like IT help desk. IT help desk, it is incredibly easy for you to land your first job. With data analyst, there is a little bit more of a barrier to entry there. You really do have to have your stuff together. So for that reason, yes, there is very high demand for data analysts, people who actually have the skills, but they're not so desperate that they are going to just take basically anybody with some super basic common knowledge and just go ahead and train them for the position. You do have to know your stuff going in. And so for that reason, I'm going to give this one an 8.5 out of 10 when it comes to demand. Next, we're going to talk about the salary. So again, market research analysts, they expect to make about $63,000 a year. According to towards data science.com, they make around $74,000 a year. And according to glassdoor.com, data analysts make $71,000 a year. Now, some of those other positions like associate data analyst, for instance, that's 74,000 for junior data analysts, that's 62,000 for finance analysts, that's about 78,000 for operations analysts, that's 71,000 for business performance analysts, that's 78,000 for marketing analysts, that's 66,000. So yeah, pretty good numbers. This is one of those careers that is entry level. You don't necessarily have to get a college degree to get into a data analyst position. But at the same time, it's not going to be super easy like some of the careers I mentioned on my channel. So it's kind of in between there. It's something that you do have to really learn quite a bit. And so for that reason, compared to other careers where you can get into relatively quickly, I'm going to give this one a salary of 8.5 out of 10. Next, we're going to talk about the production value and the engagement of the course. So first of all, here is a picture of all the different instructors in the course, really impressive group of people there. Now, at the bottom here, they talk about how IBM is the global leader in business transformation through an open hybrid cloud platform and AI serving clients in more than 170 countries around the world. Today, 47 out of the Fortune 50 companies rely on IBM cloud to run their business. So yeah, it's probably pretty important to learn the skills that this company says you should learn, especially if you want to work at a Fortune 50 company. But that kind of sets the tone for the rest of the course. Now, to be fair, this is extremely subjective. One person might think an instructor is great. Another person might not like them. But overall, this did have relatively good reviews on the internet. So overall, I'm going to give this one a nine out of 10. Next, we're going to talk about its chances of landing you a job. Is this certificate on its own going to be able to land you a job? Now, we'll go back to the 42% of certificate grads started a new career thing. Like I said, I really want to see their methodology on that because people are starting new careers all the time, right? You could be like working at McDonald's and start a new career at Starbucks. That doesn't necessarily mean that you are a data analyst. Now, I'll be honest with you here, this certificate is really good, but I do think that you will have to supplement it with something else in order to be able to land a job. So a lot of people, for instance, will take this certificate as well as the Google data analytics certificate that's also offered on Coursera. And then on top of that, you're going to want to build out a portfolio as well that showcases that you have those skills that you say you have. So if you do those things I said, I do think this certificate is going to give you a pretty good shot of landing a job as a data analyst. But just the certificate on its own is probably just going to be kind of a primer. And there's nothing wrong with that. You might take the certificate, realize that you don't like data analytics, you don't want to become a data analyst. And hey, congratulations, you just saved yourself years of time, effort and money. So this is a really affordable and efficient way for you to test out different careers. Now, one thing that's really cool about data analytics is it's getting to the point where it's very specialized. And this is the whole information industry in general. So for instance, there are nurse informaticists that are basically really good at data analytics when it has to do with stuff related to nursing. Same thing with pharmacists, same thing with doctors. And so this is getting to the point where it's very specialized to people's careers. And that's really cool because you might get one of these certificates and then maybe let's say you're a nurse, but you don't want to do nursing anymore, you might become a nurse informaticist. So there is some really cool stuff happening in data analytics because it's getting really specialized to specific careers and also specific industries and businesses. But overall, the chances of landing you a job, I'm gonna give this one an eight out of 10. Most people will not be able to land a job with just a certificate on its own, but if you do some other things, this will give you a really good chance. Now let's talk about the overall value. So what value overall does it offer? And at $39 a month, let's be real here, this is an incredible value. The fact that it even gives you a puncher's chance of landing a job at just $39 a month is incredible. As long as you go into this with a realistic expectation, knowing full well that a $39 a month certificate is not going to be equal to a college degree. And that's also not going to be equal to a bootcamp. As long as you go into that full well knowing that and realizing that it is a tool that you can use depending on your situation and your goals, right? That's like comparing a hammer to a screwdriver. One isn't necessarily better than the other, they're a tool that you use depending on what you are trying to do. So as long as you realize that, you're probably not going to be disappointed with this. And a lot of people actually choose to get both the IBM data analyst certificate and the Google data analyst certificate. And here's a few comments from people who said that. And from a risk and reward perspective, this really makes a lot of sense. And the reason for that is because you're not risking all that much time, effort or money and the potential reward is huge. Whereas with something like college, you are risking a ridiculous amount of time, effort and money and the reward is relatively fixed. And I think the number one reason that people fail, whether it's a certificate, college or a bootcamp is simply because they figure out that they don't like the career. And this is a really cheap, easy and flexible way to figure out whether you actually like the career and you want to do it for the rest of your life or for at least a long period of time. So overall the value here is going to be a 10 out of 10. Now that makes the overall score 9.14 out of 10. Excellent score. This one gets a thumbs up from me, especially if you take it in conjunction with the Google data analytics certificate. And like I said before, you can check it out. I'll put it down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. Check this video out right here where I talk about my top five favorite Google certificates.