Online MSc and Professional Diploma in Data Analytics

Laois_Man

Hi

I'm hoping to get information about this course from people who have done it or are doing it.


The list of modules looks decent.


I am looking at other M.Sc's in Data Science at other colleges too too. Some of which are a year shorter. This one 3 years, all year round (so 9 semesters in a way makes it a 4-year course) which looks exhausting. The other contender is 2-years but I have a young family and working full-time and busy with lots of things and I'd probably prefer a course that might be bit more thinly spread out, even if it's a longer duration.

How do people find the online learning aspect of the course and the course itself?

Thanks

ironclaw

I can't speak for this course but you have quite a difference there depending on what your end goal is. A diploma is really just CPD depending on your field, it wouldn't necessarily land you nor equip you for a job coming from something completely different e.g. You are a nurse who wants to move to IT, this is no good really as you don't have the background. However say an accountant / actuary, it would be a nice addition. Likewise for someone who did Computer Sci, its a nice feather in your cap. I'm speaking in broad terms there but just wanted to give my view from industry on Masters versus Diploma.

Speaking of a part time masters, yes, it can be exhausting. Very much so. I've done it. You'd want to be very sure you can find the bones of 1 to 2 hours per day, nigh every day of the week to keep up with the course. 3 years here seems really excessive but perhaps there is a logic behind it. Most at 2 years with the summer semester off, likely dependant on prerequisites.

If I can give you some advice, I'd definitely talk to the course director and some past students. What did they do before they arrive and importantly, where it got them after. What didn't they learn on the course is more important than what they did. Some UCD courses are very full of fluff and when you step back, they don't teach you a whole lot. Hence why I say go do your homework before you sign up

Laois_Man

ironclaw wrote: »

I can't speak for this course but you have quite a difference there depending on what your end goal is. A diploma is really just CPD depending on your field, it wouldn't necessarily land you nor equip you for a job coming from something completely different e.g. You are a nurse who wants to move to IT, this is no good really as you don't have the background. However say an accountant / actuary, it would be a nice addition. Likewise for someone who did Computer Sci, its a nice feather in your cap. I'm speaking in broad terms there but just wanted to give my view from industry on Masters versus Diploma.

Speaking of a part time masters, yes, it can be exhausting. Very much so. I've done it. You'd want to be very sure you can find the bones of 1 to 2 hours per day, nigh every day of the week to keep up with the course. 3 years here seems really excessive but perhaps there is a logic behind it. Most at 2 years with the summer semester off, likely dependant on prerequisites.

If I can give you some advice, I'd definitely talk to the course director and some past students. What did they do before they arrive and importantly, where it got them after. What didn't they learn on the course is more important than what they did. Some UCD courses are very full of fluff and when you step back, they don't teach you a whole lot. Hence why I say go do your homework before you sign up

Thanks for your response. I am already in the IT industry and I would be planning on going all the way to the M.Sc level. 1 or 2 hours of the day doesn't even seem like enough. Based on the excellent information provided about the course, most modules require about 18 hours of work per week.

I have been informally talking to a course director by e-mail and I would like to talk to someone who has completed the course but I believe there are no such people because it only began in September 2016. I was hoping someone doing it now would chime in (long shot). No matter where you do it or over what length of time, the fact is an M.Sc is going to take 90 credits to achieve and I do think I have a better chance if it's diluted out over a longer period.

ironclaw

Laois_Man wrote: »

Thanks for your response. I am already in the IT industry and I would be planning on going all the way to the M.Sc level. 1 or 2 hours of the day doesn't even seem like enough. Based on the excellent information provided about the course, most modules require about 18 hours of work per week.

I'm in IT myself. Honestly after a full days work, you'll be lucky to find 2 hours of alert productivity especially if you have a young family. I have no dependents myself and take my hat off to anyone who does and does a part time Masters. Its not an easy ride. I should say, I averaged 4 to 5 hours every Saturday and maybe an hour or two on Sunday. You'll need a rest day during the week or you will burn out.

UCD often quote at the extreme end for course hours, if you are already in IT, you'll save time on topics that others could take weeks to get to grasps with.

On a note of doing a Masters, I'd check your job opportunities afterwards. Ireland, in my opinion, is strongly stagnating towards a support industry employer and I'd question the real amount of 'high tech' jobs that are here. Being a shade blunt, if more money is your end goal, check that your currently employer (if you intend to stay) will up your salary with such a merit or there is a strong pipeline for such a Masters. You don't want to rock out with a new Masters to find the same modules and hence skills are available to the undergrad class you studied with.

Good luck which ever route you decide to take!

spamabit

I came across this post purely by chance and figured I'd drop in my two cents since I am in the middle of this MSc in UCD (Year 2 of 3). I figured I'd answer some of the questions here as they were asked and hopefully that'll help anyone thinking of doing this course.

The online learning aspect of the course is very dependent on your discipline. It sounds obvious, but you need to know that you have the discipline to give up things at the weekends to get the work in. Not always, but I found that some assignments just catch you out and you have to put in longer than anticipated to get them done. The feedback is ok during the semester, but there is often 100+ students undertaking a module so detailed feedback is not feasible. The discussion forums can be good, but tend to be a bit quiet until close to exam time. I definitely went nowhere near 18 hours per module per week - some weeks were fine, others almost required taking a day off work! This probably varies from person to person though, so it depends how comfortable with programming and mathematics you are.

The course material is comprehensive. They really do go into depth with statistics and the underlying linear algebra. I've looked at other Data Analytics-esque courses, and I am satisfied that I am getting an excellent grounding in the maths and programming, more so than some others I've read about. If you were more interested in the business applications of data analytics and wanted to cover that, then this is not the course for you (my opinion).

I am not in a position yet to comment on the job opportunities after this course. My own feeling is that it is an excellent course to do, but you need to be beef up your experience with 'extra-curricular' data analysis. There are huge communities of people out there (see Kaggle, for example) who do this for fun. I reckon if you want to aim high, you'll need to compliment this course with a bit of a portfolio of work/projects. Thats just my two cents.

To be clear, I am enjoying this course, but it is work. I enjoy the work. You have to enjoy this stuff, or it will become difficult to motivate yourself and your grades will suffer. I would strongly recommend trying out a short online course on the likes of edX, Coursera, Udacity etc. if you haven't already to give you a feel for what its like. They're excellent resources and you could brush up beforehand!

Laois_Man

Thanks for the response. Very interesting. For some reason, I thought the course was only in its first year now. I thought the college told me that. Your year must be the first one then.

It did strike me alright that I would like the course to have had a little more on the business applications side of things - I would like there to be a little more balance. But it's impossible to find a course that has everything you want in terms of delivery mechanism, location, reputability, duration and content. So something has to give. There is no such course that has 100% everything I want.

Regarding the workload. I wouldn't expect 18 hours PER MODULE per week but 18 hours per week for all modules looks realistic to me (given some semesters have at times, 3 modules taking place concurrently)

I do quite a bit of data analysis in my job but not using these technologies. I am hoping to be able to supplement my studies through my job with some practical applications of what I am learning at some point - that depends on my workload. My employer is a large US company in the financial sector but they're very 1990's technically so there is nobody else doing proper/modern analytics in the company yet. I might actually have to eventually move jobs to get the full benefits of the masters and terms of being able to apply and build my expertise and in terms of financial gain.

I have looked at courses on Lynda.com as my employer has a corporate license. Its been handy but I'd like to know if there's more out there. I'll look at the likes of edX, Coursera, Udacity too and see are they better. Thanks!

Rednineteen

Hi Spamabit I wonder would you be able to clarify roughly how many hours per week the course takes? Is it generally 18 or more or less than this? What about during summer term,does the course take any break? Your response would be much appreciated. Thanks

apc

Also interested in the above questions. Sorry to drag up an old thread, considering this course and there's not too much info online!

Laois_Man

apc wrote: »

Also interested in the above questions. Sorry to drag up an old thread, considering this course and there's not too much info online!

FYI, they changed the prerequisites for the course for some people by making them pass the F140: Professional Certificate in Mathematics for Data Analytics and Statistics (May 2017 to August 2017) course before the masters program stated. So you may have missed out already.

I ended up choosing another course at another college in any case.

cinnamony

Hope I'm not derailing the thread OP just wanted to give my 2 cents regarding the job opportunities as a recent graduate of the MSc in Data Science (albeit at a different college, only my BSc was in UCD)

So I graduated a few months ago with a 2.2 as unfortunately I was sick, with that said I did get experience with a company for a few weeks and worked on a ton of projects whilst doing my masters including a lot of Machine Learning, all of them with great success and managed to get myself really good references.

Unfortunately as I would find out upon graduation that wasn't for much and I even made a thread in the Development forum looking for advice. I was told to look for opportunities elsewhere, especially in the UK, but after considering all the costs of moving abroad I found myself in a position where I was unable to afford it so I stuck with Ireland. I did finally find a position here working with SQL and Excel but the salary is absolutely crap. As a matter of fact none of the companies I interviewed for wanted to give me above 22k and the maximum I was able to pull out of them (which was the job I ended up accepting) is 25k. So if you've read the Morgan Mckinley guide and looked for average Data Analyst salaries in Ireland forget the 32k or so they quote, none of my friends not even the ones with 1.1 are making this amount of money.

In terms of skills, I find I don't use most of what I learned in my course. Most of the jobs I found in Ireland ask for Excel, Google sheets seems to be becoming more popular too. SQL is also commonly asked. Python, R, Hadoop etc... honestly forget that until you have like 3 years or more of experience and even then they seem scarce here. Another thing I was recommended in the thread I created was to get a PHd, which is something I will consider in the future.

Also one more warning, it seems that automation for Data Analysis is not far off. Actually my friend works for a company with software that has automated some of the tasks that would have been previously done by Data Analysts but so far this is only some minor data processing and stuff. That said I have read some articles that suggest this might be extended in the future, but I wouldn't worry for now

ironclaw

cinnamony wrote: »

I found in Ireland ask for Excel, Google sheets seems to be becoming more popular too. SQL is also commonly asked. Python, R, Hadoop etc... honestly forget that until you have like 3 years or more of experience and even then they seem scarce here. Another thing I was recommended in the thread I created was to get a PHd, which is something I will consider in the future.

Being frank, you're definitely looking at the wrong companies and jobs. The market is exploding for data analytics and they are not using these 'tools'. They arn't even tools

I'd keep reviewing jobs and look for real data analytic companies, anyone using Google Sheets for 'data analytics' is hardly serious.

beauf

There is probably a large difference in what people want and what they are willing to pay.

cinnamony

ironclaw wrote: »

Being frank, you're definitely looking at the wrong companies and jobs. The market is exploding for data analytics and they are not using these 'tools'. They arn't even tools

I'd keep reviewing jobs and look for real data analytic companies, anyone using Google Sheets for 'data analytics' is hardly serious.

I didn't say I'm using Google sheets in my current role I said I've seen some demand for it, either way Google can do almost anything Excel can but unfortunately is more suitable to small data sets. Excel however is definitely still king and the most common "tool" I see as a requirement, you're kidding yourself if you think data analyst roles that require Excel aren't "real" data analysis and just because a job requires Python, R, Hadoop etc doesn't mean that's all you will be using. In general you must be proficient in a variety of tools.

Also as I said anything beyond this generally requires a few years of experience and employers can market anything as "Data Analysis" since its a buzzword. I went for an interview for a "Data Analyst" role that was actually for a call centre agent, another was actually an office administrator role.

By the way I never looked for any companies in particular, I would just go on Indeed etc and search for Data Analyst roles, would be pretty weird if all they market are "wrong companies and roles"

beauf

Data Analyst seems an over used term. Many are support roles or business analyst roles with minimal technical skills. I assume in Google and such are really focused on big data.

ironclaw

beauf wrote: »

Data Analyst seems an over used term. Many are support roles or business analyst roles with minimal technical skills. I assume in Google and such are really focused on big data.

This is what I was trying and failing to get at. Ireland is frankly woeful in the big data area. I still can't get over that a role advertised as data analyst would have Excel as a top requirement. If your data set fits in Excel, its not worth analysing or you're certainly not anywhere near the bleeding edge. You're definetely not discovering anything new. Data sets of any reasonable size worthy of processing need farms or GPU's to process in any sort of reasonable time.

Wasn't having a go at you cinnamony in any way regarding your chosen role or career. I just assumed, wrongly, we were talking about Big Data.

cinnamony

ironclaw wrote: »

This is what I was trying and failing to get at. Ireland is frankly woeful in the big data area. I still can't get over that a role advertised as data analyst would have Excel as a top requirement. If your data set fits in Excel, its not worth analysing or you're certainly not anywhere near the bleeding edge. You're definetely not discovering anything new. Data sets of any reasonable size worthy of processing need farms or GPU's to process in any sort of reasonable time.

Wasn't having a go at you cinnamony in any way regarding your chosen role or career. I just assumed, wrongly, we were talking about Big Data.

Sorry if I seemed angry or something I didn't mean to come across that way! I guess in a way I was agreeing with you as what I meant was that as a graduate I couldn't get any Big Data roles because they are all senior level roles and like you said Ireland is not that great for Big Data and a lot of Data Analysts jobs here are either more geared towards Business Analytics or Statistics rather than I.T. Alot of the time, businesses don't even differentiate between Business Analysis and Data Analytics really...

cm1123

spamabit wrote: »

I came across this post purely by chance and figured I'd drop in my two cents since I am in the middle of this MSc in UCD (Year 2 of 3). I figured I'd answer some of the questions here as they were asked and hopefully that'll help anyone thinking of doing this course.

The online learning aspect of the course is very dependent on your discipline. It sounds obvious, but you need to know that you have the discipline to give up things at the weekends to get the work in. Not always, but I found that some assignments just catch you out and you have to put in longer than anticipated to get them done. The feedback is ok during the semester, but there is often 100+ students undertaking a module so detailed feedback is not feasible. The discussion forums can be good, but tend to be a bit quiet until close to exam time. I definitely went nowhere near 18 hours per module per week - some weeks were fine, others almost required taking a day off work! This probably varies from person to person though, so it depends how comfortable with programming and mathematics you are.

The course material is comprehensive. They really do go into depth with statistics and the underlying linear algebra. I've looked at other Data Analytics-esque courses, and I am satisfied that I am getting an excellent grounding in the maths and programming, more so than some others I've read about. If you were more interested in the business applications of data analytics and wanted to cover that, then this is not the course for you (my opinion).

I am not in a position yet to comment on the job opportunities after this course. My own feeling is that it is an excellent course to do, but you need to be beef up your experience with 'extra-curricular' data analysis. There are huge communities of people out there (see Kaggle, for example) who do this for fun. I reckon if you want to aim high, you'll need to compliment this course with a bit of a portfolio of work/projects. Thats just my two cents.

To be clear, I am enjoying this course, but it is work. I enjoy the work. You have to enjoy this stuff, or it will become difficult to motivate yourself and your grades will suffer. I would strongly recommend trying out a short online course on the likes of edX, Coursera, Udacity etc. if you haven't already to give you a feel for what its like. They're excellent resources and you could brush up beforehand!

I was just wondering how you got on with the rest of the course and what your experience was after you graduated regarding job opportunities?

I'm currently doing the course (started last month) and I'm wondering whether to do the full 3 years, or graduate next year with the ProfDip and apply something different next year, possibly a business conversion course (my bachelors was in maths and physics).

Also if anyone else sees this and has done a similar course or if you have industry experience, feel free to chime in!