9 Best Data Science Courses on Coursera

Data Science is popular and in-demand today and likely for years to come. The supply however does not suffice. This imbalance will take a while to be solved.

The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics predicts 11.5 million new jobs in the field of Data Science by 2026. If you’re career-oriented, it will probably be very wise of you to consider learning data science.

Here we have a list of the best data science courses on Coursera that might help you kick-start learning or gain more expertise on the subject knowledge.

Even if you are a beginner, check these out. For some of these data science courses, you don’t need to have any prior requirements to start today!

9 Best Coursera Data Science Courses in 2024

Quick Overview:

S.No	Course
1	IBM Data Science Professional Certificate – Overall Best
2	Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate – Most Popular
3	Data Science Fundamentals with Python and SQL Specialization
4	Executive Data Science Specialization
5	Introduction to Data Science Specialization – Best for Beginners
6	JHU’s Data Science Specialization
7	Data Science: Foundations using R Specialization
8	Data Science: Statistics and Machine Learning Specialization
9	Applied Data Science with Python Specialization – Best Practical Course

Let us see about these 9 Coursera data science courses in detail now.

1. IBM Data Science Professional Certificate

Here you will be learning what it means to think and act like a data scientist, developing first-hand skills on the tools and languages used by professionals. In the end, you will complete a project on the application of the data science skills you have learnt through the course that publishes a report.

Duration – 11 months

Offered by – IBM

2. Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate

With this course, you will gain an understanding of the 2of a junior data scientist. You can use tools to organise data for spreadsheets, SQL, and R programming, Tableau and to present these using visualisation platforms. 

Duration – 6 months

Offered by – Google

3. Data Science Fundamentals with Python and SQL Specialization

Here you will learn about data science tools like Jupyter Notebooks, R Studio, Watson Studio and GitHub. You will also gain basic knowledge about Python programming and libraries like Pandas and Numpy. You might want to have a basic idea of how to use a computer and its basic functions before you begin this course, nothing more complex. However, this course covers more sophisticated parts of data science and will take you at least 6 months to complete.

Duration – 4 months

Offered by – IBM

4. Executive Data Science Specialization

John Hopkins University offers this course through Coursera and with this, you’ll be able to get a stronghold of the roles associated with data science, making you overcome challenges in hiring the right person for the job. You’ll understand the roles and expect the right kind of data scientists at every level. There is no prior experience required so you can get started right away. With consistency, it might take you 2 months to finish this course.

Duration – 2 months

Offered by – Johns Hopkins University

5. Introduction to Data Science Specialization

IBM offers this course through Coursera. With this, you will learn about some foundational skills required to understand Data Science. You will also learn about machine learning, its uses and applications by data scientists. As part of the course, you will also be writing SQL statements and Cloud databases using Jupyter notebooks. No prior knowledge is assumed.

Duration – 4 months

Offered by – IBM

6. Data Science Specialization

John Hopkins University offers this course through Coursera. This course will teach you how to use R to process data. You will be using GitHub to manage data science projects. You are expected to have beginner level experience in Python.

Duration – 11 months

Offered by – Johns Hopkins University

7. Data Science: Foundations using R Specialization

In this course, you will learn how to use R to process data, use GitHub to manage data science projects and set up R, R-studio etc. By the end of the course, you will have a strong foundational understanding of Data science, machine learning, GitHub, REGEX, Debugging, Rstudio and many other things. No prior experience is assumed so beginners can apply.

Duration – 5 months

Offered by – Johns Hopkins University

8. Data Science: Statistics and Machine Learning Specialization

This course is offered by Johns Hopkins University through Coursera. You will be learning statistical inference, machine learning, regression models and the development of data products. This course will also have you put what you learnt to use by building a data product using real-world data. Therefore by the end of the course, you will have a portfolio ready to show your expertise at the project.

Duration – 6 months

Offered by – Johns Hopkins University

9. Applied Data Science with Python Specialization

The University of Michigan offers this course through Coursera. In this course, you will learn the application of data science and sharpen your analysis skills. Data science will be learnt through the Python programming language using toolkits like pandas, Matplotlib and NLTK.

Also check out the list of Python courses we have curated here. You might find it useful.

Duration – 5 months

Offered by – University of Michigan

3 Ways to Enroll in Coursera Data Science Courses

With Coursera Plus, you can get access to all the above mentioned Coursera data science courses. You don’t have to buy courses individually.

Best part is you’ll also get access to more than 7,000 Coursera courses with the Coursera Plus subscription. You can also get unlimited certificates.

If you just want to try one data science course on Coursera, then you can simply purchase that single course. You’ll get complete access to the course you buy.

But I would recommend you Coursera Plus instead of taking this option. And that is for a simple reason, Value for money. If you compare the cost of one course to Coursera Plus, you’ll definitely see the difference.

If you don’t want the certificates but if you just want to learn, you can choose the audit option. With this option, you can enroll in a course for free and get access to most of the course content like videos, articles, etc. to learn data science from it.

You’ll see this audit option only in individual course page. It won’t be available directly in specialisation or professional certificate page.

Please note that for some courses you won’t see an audit option.

Final Words

Data science is quite popular and the skills associated will benefit you even if you don’t end up being a data scientist.

You can choose one of these coursera data science courses and start learning today.

All the best for your data science career.

Happy Learning!