The Top 5 Machine Learning Certifications | Towards Data Science

IntroductionMachine Learning by Stanford UniversityDeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer Professional CertificateGetting Started with AWS Machine LearningAugmented Data Visualization with Machine LearningBuilding Recommender Systems with Machine Learning and AISummaryReferences
Introduction
Machine Learning by Stanford University
DeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer Professional Certificate
Getting Started with AWS Machine Learning
Augmented Data Visualization with Machine Learning
Building Recommender Systems with Machine Learning and AI
Summary
References
There are plenty of Machine Learning resources on the internet, with a wide variety of not only courses, but also certificates. I want to highlight what I think are the top five Machine Learning certificates of 2020. Some, you will have to pay for, and some are free. You can also opt to finish learnings only and prove to whomever you are sharing your completion with as a certificate itself. It is ultimately up to you on which certification you want, and how you want to display it. Below, I will be discussing a variety of Machine Learning certifications offered through a few websites and platforms (none of which I am affiliated with). These are courses that will allow you to receive a certificate after completion. I hope you find these to be useful and become motivated on becoming a well-certified Machine Learning Engineer, as well as Data Scientist, and Data Analyst.
Here are the top five Machine Learning certificates for 2020:
The first certificate on our ranking is quite popular. For this certificate, and the ones below, I will be giving some stats, an overview, what you will learn, and what makes the certificate different from others. To start, this certificate is offered through Coursera by Stanford University, and taught by the popular and highly rated Andrew Ng.
Stats
Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars Rating Amount: ~ 150,000 ratingsDuration of Course: ~ 60 hours to completeCareer Impact: 40% started a new careerCareer Improvement: 38% received a tangible benefit
Overview
As you can see, these stats are quite impressive. So, what is the general overview of this course? This course offers both theoretical and practical knowledge of Machine Learning topics — it is beneficial to learn both to be successful in your industry as a Machine Learning Engineer. Also stressed in this course, is that what you learn will the ability to learn problem-solving through practicing problems that would be encountered in real-world situations.
What will you learn?
Linear RegressionLinear Algebra ReviewOctave/Matlab TutorialsLogistic RegressionRegularizationNeural NetworksAdvice for Applying Machine LearningMachine Learning System DesignSupport Vector MachinesUnsupervised LearningDimensionality ReductionAnomaly DetectionRecommender SystemsLarge Scale Machine LearningApplication Example: Photo OCR
Over the course of 11 weeks, you will learn the main topics of Machine Learning, but what makes this course different?
What differentiates this course?
In your last week, you will have five videos, one reading, and one quiz on the application of photo OCR. Not only is this a unique offering, but it is also quite interesting. You will go over the problem, pipeline, sliding windows, artificial data, and ceiling analysis. Also unique are the Octave/Matlab tutorials. You can also share your certificate on LinkedIn.
Here is the direct link to this course [3].
www.coursera.org
The second course is also offered through Coursera and deeplearning.ai with a focus on TensorFlow.
Stats
Rating: 4.7, 4.7, 4.6, and 4.6 (for 4 courses)Rating Amount: ~ 12k, 5k, 4k, 3k ratingsDuration of Course: ~ 4 monthsCareer Impact: 40% started a new careerCareer Improvement: 12% received a pay increase
Overview
You will of course learn about TensorFlow along with its neural network and computer vision applications as well. You will also go over natural language processing (NLP). There is also a focus on real-world problem solving, with importance on image data as well as how you can prevent overfitting. Key algorithms discussed and practiced are RNNs, GRUs, and LSTMs.
What will you learn?
This certificate is broken into 4 courses:TensorFlow for Artificial Intellginac, Machine Learning, and Deep LearningConvolutional Neural Networks in TensorFlowNatural Language Processing in TensorFlowSequences, Time Series and Prediction
What differentiates this course?
Highly specialized in TensorFlow, this certificate will allow you to benefit from being a master in one area of Machine Learning. This course is also different and beneficial from its focus on natural language processing in regards to TensorFlow. You can learn about processing text, along with tokenizing before being inputted into a neural network. You can also share your certificate on LinkedIn.
Here is the direct link to this course [5].
www.coursera.org
If you are new to AWS, this course and its respective certificate is an excellent way to focus on learning Machine Learning for AWS and its applications. This course and certificate are also offered through Coursera by AWS.
Stats
Rating: 4.5Rating Amount: ~ 5kDuration of Course: ~ 8 hours!
Overview
As you can see, this course is rather short, which is excellent if you want to jump in and see what learning these courses and earning a certificate feels like — but on a smaller scale. This course covers Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and of course, Amazon SageMaker. If you are looking at new jobs at the moment, you can find job descriptions and see if AWS is recommended or required in order to apply and work at that job.
Therefore, you would be highly qualified with a certification like this one, as well as continuing on to more advanced levels of AWS.
What will you learn?
Machine LearningMachine Learning PipelineAmazon AI Services: Computer VisionAmazon AI Services: NLPAmazon SageMaker
What differentiates this course?
You will of course focus on Machine Learning with respect to AWS. It is beneficial to receive broad overviews of Machine Learning topics and become certified in those respective topics, but it is also important to obtain specialized certifications (in, of course, something that you are interested in — especially if you want to perform it every day at your job). Some specific differentiation of this course and certificate is the object detection on images as well as text classification models with Glue and SageMaker. You can also share this certificate on LinkedIn.
Here is the direct link to this course [7].
www.coursera.org
This course and certification are offered through Udemy. The focus on this certificate is automating analytics from Oracle Analytics Cloud with not just Machine Learning, but also data visualizations, and a heavy focus on business analytics.
Stats
Rating: 4.4Rating Amount: ~ 243Duration of Course: ~ 3 hours
Overview
It is required that you have a basic understanding of business analytics, stations, and want to learn about visualization. There is also a focus on hands-on training. You will also focus more on how to tie in Machine Learning with the problems of a business. You will work on business intelligence and data flows as well.
What will you learn?
Datasets from Different Data SourcesData Flow Deep-Dive with Oracle AnalyticsAdvanced Analytics with Oracle AnalyticsMachine Learning with Data VisualizationFeatures with Oracle Analytics Cloud and Machine Learning-Driven Augmented Analytics
What differentiates this course?
Like how some of the other certificates focused on a primary tool, so does this course and certificate — Oracle Analytics. You will learn more about the business setting in regards to Machine Learning with this certificate. An example is a storytelling section of the analytics section of this course. Also, there is Machine Learning for business users highlighted that is unique. This course is more for Data Scientists or Business Analysts who want to become familiar with Machine Learning and try their hand at some complex algorithms — ultimately becoming highly cross-functional in the workforce.
Here is the direct link to this course [9].
www.udemy.com
This last certificate is offered by LinkedIn itself, so you can be sure that you can share your certificate there. I like how this course and certificate offers a focus on recommender systems with both Machine Learning and AI.
Stats
Rating Amount: ~ 900 like this courseDuration of Course: ~ 9 hoursAccess: tablet and phone too!
Overview
This certificate will allow you to be proficient in automated recommendation systems. You will be able to build your own, including, but not limited to neighborhood-based collaborative filtering.
What will you learn?
Top-N Recommender ArchitecturesPython Basics for Working with RecommendersEvaluating Recommender SystemsReviewing a Recommender Engine FrameworkContent-Based FilteringNeighborhood-Based Collaborative FilteringMatrix Factorization MethodsApplying Deep Learning to RecommendationsScaling with Apache Spark, Amazon DSSTNE, and AWS SageMakerReal-World Challenges and Solutions with Recommender systemsCase Studies from YouTube and Netflix
What differentiates this course?
This course and its respective certificate on Linkedin is different because it not only includes real-world applications of Machine Learning, but also presents case studies. Two popular case studies included are YouTube and Netflix — Netflix Technology Blog.
Here is the direct link to this course [11].
www.linkedin.com
There are several courses and respective certificates. Many are extremely useful. I have included what I think are the top five certificates to obtain in 2020 for Machine Learning (Engineers). Some of these certificates can apply to not only Machine Learning Eningeres, but Data Scientists, Software Engineers, Data Engineers, Data Analysts, and Business Analysts as well. Machine Learning is a broad field that overlaps in several areas, so it is useful and beneficial to obtain different learnings from different sources so that you can diversity your knowledge, and become a better Machine Learning Engineer.
To summarize, here are the top certificates in one spot:
Machine Learning by Stanford UniversityDeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer Professional CertificateGetting Started with AWS Machine LearningAugmented Data Visualization with Machine LearningBuilding Recommender Systems with Machine Learning and AI
I hope you found this article interesting and useful. Feel free to comment down below your experience with any of these courses and certifications, as well as any new ones that you recommend. Thank you for reading!
I am not affiliated with any of these websites, courses, or certificates.
[1] Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash, (2017)
[2] Photo by Ye Linn Wai on Unsplash, (2018)
[3] Coursera Inc. and Andrew Ng, Machine Learning by Stanford University, (2020)
[4] Photo by Uriel SC on Unsplash, (2020)
[5] Coursera Inc. and Laurence Moroney, DeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer Professional Certificate, (2020)
[6] Photo by Daniel Eledut on Unsplash, (2019)
[7] Coursera Inc. and Blaine Sundrud, Getting Started with AWS Machine Learning, (2020)
[8] Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash, (2015)
[9] Udemy, Inc., Subrata Dutta, Oracle Corporation, Peter Sprague, Jignesh Mehta, Farzin Barazandeh, Augmented Data Visualization with Machine Learning, (2020)
[10] Photo by Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash, (2020)
[11] LinkedIn Corporation and Frank Kane, Building Recommender Systems with Machine Learning and AI, (2020)
[12] Photo by Benjamin Kafer on Unsplash, (2020)