0.a) Is this certification worth it?

Before you start judging me and worrying thinking that I might be suffering from the “confirmation bias syndrome” (I took the exam and pass, so I could be tempted to find every single argument to say that this is the best certificate ever), I want to tell you that you don’t need to!

Here you won’t encounter statements like “study hard, become the best, like me!” or “It was incredibly hard, only experienced data scientist will pass.” What you are about to read will be an attempt to make the right questions about what data science cloud certifications might represent for you and the industry in general.

In case you’re here deciding whether you want to read this or not, I will — upfront — describe to you the place where this blog post is going: this will be about YOU, not me.

I genuinely believe that the problem that we need to solve before you take this decision is more an “it’s a good fit for ME?” question than an “it’s a GOOD or BAD badge to earn?” (as usual, the reality is more complicated than just good or evil, don’t you think?).

0.b) What is this all about then?

Well, if you are intrigued by this pretentious introduction, let me tell you HOW we will try to answer if this certification is a good step for you or is not. Here you can see a graphic representation of our agenda:

Flaticon references: (first and third)

Regardless of whether we like it or not, we can’t deny that we are part of an ecosystem, and this ecosystem it’s having its own trends and phenomenons that we must look at. If we avoid this part, we might be underfitting the problem.

In the first part, we will describe the data science context and what’s actually happening in the industry. Knowing what’s happening around us will give us the chance to understand if certifications are or might be valuables in the near future.

Besides, as you might know, in order to know if something is a good fit for you, you also need to explore this thing’s characteristics that you are trying to put on yourself.

In the second part, I will describe this test’s peculiarities, letting you know what knowledge you are expected to have or learn if you want to pass. I will try my best to give you a general understanding of what the exam is trying to test, so I will avoid easy descriptions like just rephrasing the certification skills outline.

In the third part (reached that point, we will already know what to expect from the certificate), we will understand if you are good to go in your particular case and when you should be thinking twice about earning this badge. Understanding things about you will help us to analyze the remaining piece of this puzzle: YOU. Your career stage, goals, and motivations give us the last and most crucial part of the discussion.

#cloud #certification #azure #data-science #machine-learning