![\"9](\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/9-top-platforms-to-practice-key-data-science-skills.png\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The nice thing about existing online nowadays is that learning is no longer gatekept. You can read, practice, quiz, and program all by yourself, from the comfort of your own home, without paying for a degree.<\/p>\n
And because data science is seen as a tricky skill to learn, many employers aren\u2019t worried about where you learned to code in Python or any other data science skill, just as long as you can do it.<\/p>\n
In this article, I\u2019ll break down nine data science learning platforms that provide you with an interactive learning experience. These come with a variety of resources, including video tutorials, interactive coding exercises, and quizzes, to help you build and solidify your programming and database management skills.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s dive in. In each section, I\u2019ll explain what the platform is, what you can learn, how much it costs, and what sets it apart from the other eight platforms I\u2019ll touch on.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an overview of each platform for quick reference.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"9](\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/9-top-platforms-to-practice-key-data-science-skills-1.png\")
<\/p>\n
Codecademy<\/a> is a platform designed specifically for learning how to code.<\/p>\n Codecademy is an online learning platform that offers courses and tutorials on programming, data science, and web development. It\u2019s a super popular choice among beginners and those looking to improve their coding skills.<\/p>\n With Codecademy, you can learn a ton of different programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, Ruby, HTML, CSS, and more. No matter what your flavor, you\u2019ll find a course for it. Codecademy also offers courses on data science topics like SQL and data visualization, as well as web dev tools such as React and Git.<\/p>\n I personally love Codecademy because it\u2019s so interactive. The platform gives you lessons and coding exercises that help you build real-world projects and understand the fundamental concepts of programming.<\/p>\n On their website, their logo is literally \u201clearn to code for free.\u201d There IS a free level, where you can get courses like \u201cLearn SQL<\/a>\u201d and \u201cLearn Java: Introduction<\/a>\u201d for free.<\/p>\n However, if you want to further your knowledge and access more advanced courses, you\u2019ll have to pay $34.99 a month, or $17.49\/month if you pay annually.<\/p>\n Codecademy stands out because of its ease of use. It\u2019s ultra-beginner-friendly. Many coding platforms call themselves beginner-friendly because that\u2019s their target demographic, but Codecademy is perfect for someone who\u2019s never typed a line of code in their lives.<\/p>\n There are tons of free courses you can try out to get a sense of that language, and their teaching style works for you.<\/p>\n Coursera<\/a> is a platform for universities and companies to upload video courses. Among other topics, they have a whole host of popular data science instructors.<\/p>\n Coursera is the destination for online learning run by universities. They do online courses, certificates you can hang on your virtual LinkedIn wall, and even full degree programs. They partner with universities like U of Michigan, Yale, Rice, Imperial College London, and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n Courses typically run for between one to nine months.<\/p>\n On Coursera, you can learn pretty much any skill, including courses like \u201cThe Science of Well-Being<\/a>,\u201d \u201cIntroduction to Psychology<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cFinancial Markets<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n They also offer:<\/p>\n Some courses are free to access, like the first three courses I listed above. Some guided projects, like \u201cDocker for absolute beginners<\/a>,\u201d start at $9.99\/month to access. If you enroll in a more useful course, like a specialization or a professional certificate, those run at $39.99 a month. Degrees, naturally, cost more – they start at $9,000 a degree.<\/p>\n Coursera has a huge variety of courses for a fairly reasonable price, run by top institutions like Yale and IBM. You can get practical skills, a grounding in a wider topic, or go deep with a specialization.<\/p>\n StrataScratch<\/a> is an interview question platform.<\/p>\n StrataScratch has 1000+ real interview questions from top data science companies<\/a>, both coding and non-coding. It\u2019s geared toward folks who are ready to apply for and get a data science job.<\/p>\n This is a much more practical, outcome-focused platform. Rather than teaching you new skills from scratch, this platform is best if you already have some knowledge and want to test yourself or if you want to practice for an upcoming interview.<\/p>\n On the coding side, you can practice PostgreSQL, Python, MySQL, R, and MS SQL Server questions. For non-coding questions, you can practice system design, probability, business cases, statistics, modeling, technical, and product questions.<\/p>\n You can also filter by difficulty and company.<\/p>\n StrataScratch also offers data projects like Market Analysis in Dublin<\/a>, and guides, for example, SQL Time and Date Manipulation<\/a>. These more hands-on projects can be useful if you want to add these to your portfolio.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a free tier, which includes some but not all questions, both with and without solutions.<\/p>\n For the $32\/month tier, you get access to the full roster of interview questions and solutions.<\/p>\n Finally, there\u2019s a yearly option that costs $139\/year (or lifetime for $289) that additionally includes access to the data projects and in-depth solution guides to various coding questions aimed at data scientists with 1-2 years of industry experience.<\/p>\n Because these are real questions taken from real data science interviews, you\u2019ll get hands-on experience with exactly what companies are looking for.<\/p>\n Boot.dev<\/a> is home to courses to help you become a backend developer.<\/p>\n Boot.dev is an interesting platform that aims to patch the gap between college degrees and e-learning platforms. College degrees are slow and expensive. Places like Coursera focus on the front-end. If you want to practice Python, SQL, and other coding skills to get a job as a backend dev, you\u2019ll struggle.<\/p>\n They organize the platform around \u201ctracks,\u201d which include languages, guided projects, and portfolio projects.<\/p>\n You can learn Python, JavaScript, and Go as the premier backend coding languages. But you\u2019ll also be taught more computer science-focused skills and concepts, like algorithms, object-oriented programming, and cryptography.<\/p>\n Boot.dev costs either $39\/month, $249\/year, or $999 for the lifetime price. For all those tiers, you get the same benefits: access to all the content, a job-ready portfolio of coding projects, certificates of completion, and access to the Discord server.<\/p>\n There are very few places to get learning geared to help you become a backend developer vs a frontend developer<\/a>. Maybe because front-end dev is seen as more approachable, most e-learning platforms focus on skills like HTML and CSS.<\/p>\n This is one of the only platforms I\u2019ve seen that champions back-end learner.<\/p>\n Udemy<\/a> is an online learning platform with courses that anyone can upload.<\/p>\n Udemy is similar to Coursera, but with one key difference: anyone can upload video courses, not just universities or organizations. Like Coursera, Udemy can give you access to a ton of courses about all sorts of skills, but there is a great selection of data science skills.<\/p>\n This means that Udemy offers a wide range of courses, from beginner to advanced, taught by experts, professionals, and individuals.<\/p>\n Udemy’s courses are designed to be accessible and flexible, with video lessons, quizzes, and projects to help students build practical skills. The platform also offers lifetime access to course content, so students can learn at their own pace and revisit the material as needed. Udemy’s courses are not accredited, but many of them come with certificates of completion that can be used to showcase skills and knowledge to potential employers.<\/p>\n The better question is, what can\u2019t you learn? But here\u2019s a quick upshot of some of the best courses on offer:<\/p>\n You have two options:<\/p>\n The massive breadth of Udemy is its strength. You can find a course not just on any language but for any purpose, like \u201cPython for Object-Oriented Programming<\/a>\u201d or \u201cThe Complete Guide to React<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n And because anyone can upload a course, you\u2019re bound to find an instructor you gel with.<\/p>\n edX<\/a> is kind of like Coursera Ultimate. edX has a partnership with several prestigious universities, including Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n Similar to Coursera, edX offers online courses from top universities and institutions. However, edX specializes a little more, both in terms of who they partner with and the skills on offer. For example, edX offers verified certificates, professional certificates, and micromasters, while Coursera only offers specializations, professional certificates, and degrees.<\/p>\n Coursera is also more self-paced, while edX has deadlines for exams and assignments.<\/p>\n With 3,000+ courses to choose from, you\u2019ll be able to find a good data science skill to learn. This platform offers \u201cIntro to Analytics Modeling<\/a>,\u201d \u201cMachine Learning with Python<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cThe Essentials of Data Literacy<\/a>,\u201d just to name a few.<\/p>\n It varies from course to course, but edX is a little more expensive than Coursera, as a rule. You can access almost any course for free to audit it, but that comes with limitations \u2013 you only get access to the material for a month, you don\u2019t get a certificate, and your assignments aren\u2019t graded.<\/p>\n If you want the verified track, prices run from around $49\/course to $149\/course.<\/p>\n They also offer bootcamps, which run into thousands of dollars. For example, UC Berkeley\u2019s<\/a> 24-week coding bootcamp costs $13k.<\/p>\n This one is pretty comparable to Coursera. The main benefits are that it\u2019s more guided than Coursera, and you might be able to get some more brand name recognition with their certificates.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a step away from learning platforms. Kaggle<\/a> is, instead, a competition platform.<\/p>\n Kaggle\u2019s a very popular, very well-run data science competition platform with a lean towards machine learning specifically. It\u2019s owned by Google, and it has tens of thousands of data sets to practice on.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll get:<\/p>\n On Kaggle, you can learn skills like data analysis, machine learning, programming in Python and R, and data prep.<\/p>\n Check out some of the competitions on offer and see what skills you want to polish. For example, you can participate in the advanced regression techniques<\/a> challenge, microbusiness density forecasting<\/a>, or computer vision<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all free! Enter competitions, download datasets, and take a short course, all for free. That\u2019s one of the big benefits of Kaggle being owned by Google. It\u2019s well-funded and hence can afford to be free for players\/competitors\/learners.<\/p>\n It\u2019s very helpful to get access to real, crunchy data and real, crunchy problems. Once you\u2019re done with e-learning and you want to push yourself even further, this kind of challenge-based platform is good for refining your skills further.<\/p>\n Plus, having access to and guidance on so many data sets means you\u2019ll be able to craft and add some fun data science projects<\/a> to your portfolio.<\/p>\n Finally, the competitive angle works for some learners!<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at HackerRank<\/a>, another website for coding challenges.<\/p>\n HackerRank is a website for coding challenges and competitions for software developers to improve their coding skills.<\/p>\n Many companies use it as a fun way to screen job candidates for software development jobs. The platform offers a wide range of categories to choose from, including algorithms, data structures, mathematics, databases, and more.<\/p>\n As a random person on the internet who might want to learn Python, SQL, and other coding skills, it\u2019s a great place to create a portfolio.<\/p>\n The way HackerRank works is like a combination of a portfolio and Kaggle. There are ranked competitions you can take part in, and you can also get certified in languages like Go, C#, and Java.<\/p>\n They have three areas where you can learn:<\/p>\n Basically, it\u2019s a good place for active job seekers \u2013 and anyone else who wants to learn \u2013 to practice and test their coding skills in a challenging and competitive environment.<\/p>\n HackerRank also gives you resources, tutorials, articles, and sample code.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the fun part: it\u2019s primarily a product for companies to hire people. That means that as a candidate, you actually get the product for free (because, in some senses, you are<\/i> the product).<\/p>\n The unique thing about HackerRank is it\u2019s designed for companies, not individuals. That makes it exceptionally useful for individuals to see what companies need to hire someone. You get the interview\u2019s view of yourself, so you know what skills to focus on.<\/p>\n It\u2019s ideal for someone who wants to get a job in data science.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at this question-and-answer platform.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a little cheeky of me to include StackOverflow as a learning platform because that\u2019s not really what it\u2019s designed for. But it was one of the best platforms I used to learn Python and R organically. And best of all, it\u2019s free.<\/p>\n StackOverflow is a place for programmers, developers, and software engineers to post questions and get crowd-sourced answers. Answers can be voted up or down depending on their helpfulness and accuracy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a huge repository of coding questions and answers going back for years.<\/p>\n The best way to learn on StackOverflow is by asking and answering questions. Start basic – look for baby questions in Python or SQL that don\u2019t yet have an answer. You\u2019ll soon get a ton of peer feedback on the quality of your answer so that you can improve from there.<\/p>\n It\u2019s intimidating, but it\u2019s a great way to sharpen not only your actual coding skills but your communication skills too.<\/p>\n It\u2019s free! Totally, 100% free to make an account and ask or answer unlimited questions.<\/p>\n The best thing about StackOverflow is that it wasn\u2019t<\/i> designed as a learning platform. These are not carefully designed questions and answers \u2013 they are real, crunchy, human-world problems with untidy data. And you\u2019re going to get real peer feedback from real data scientists.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a real challenge, but it\u2019s a superb way to learn.<\/p>\n In conclusion, the beauty of the digital age is that education is now at our fingertips. Data science is a hot topic, and many employers don’t care where you learned it as long as you can rock it.<\/p>\n This article breaks down nine amazing and somewhat unconventional platforms that make learning this in-demand skill a breeze. With video tutorials, interactive coding exercises, quizzes, and IRL data, you’ll be able to sharpen your skills and show the world what you’re made of.<\/p>\n Don’t wait any longer. Pick a platform (or nine – these are not exclusive!) and start learning data science today.What Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
![\"9](\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/9-top-platforms-to-practice-key-data-science-skills-2.png\")
Image from canva<\/a><\/span>
<\/p>\nWhat Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
What Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
What Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
What Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
![\"9](\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/9-top-platforms-to-practice-key-data-science-skills-3.png\")
Image from canva<\/a><\/span>
<\/p>\nWhat is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
What Is This?<\/h2>\n
\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
![\"9](\"https:\/\/wordpress-1016567-4521551.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/9-top-platforms-to-practice-key-data-science-skills-4.png\")
Image from canva<\/a><\/span>
<\/p>\nWhat Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
What Is This?<\/h2>\n
What Can You Learn?<\/h2>\n
\n
How Much Does It Cost?<\/h2>\n
Key Benefit?<\/h2>\n
Nate Rosidi<\/a><\/b> is a data scientist and in product strategy. He’s also an adjunct professor teaching analytics, and is the founder of StrataScratch<\/a>, a platform helping data scientists prepare for their interviews with real interview questions from top companies. Connect with him on Twitter: StrataScratch<\/a> or LinkedIn<\/a>.
<\/p>\n