Analytics Insight – July 2019

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often have to read library and API documentation, which is in
written form), and it’s one reason Dataquest uses real-world
data, even in its introductory courses.
Additionally, the courses are organized into careful “paths”
where each course builds upon the last one. A student with
zero programming or data science experience could start Da-
taquest’s Data Analyst or Data Scientist paths and go from zero
knowledge to being a qualified job candidate just by working
through the courses on Dataquest platform in sequence.


Standing Out with Learner-Centric Offerings
Dataquest distinguishes itself among other similar data science
education platforms. First, it is far more affordable than most
option for learning data science. A recent survey it conducted
of over 700 long-term students found that they saw a mean
salary increase of over US$16,000 after Dataquest vs. their sal-
ary before. Given Dataquest’s total long-term student count,
it estimates the platform has helped students earn over $100
million in salary gains after studying with it. The platform costs
just $399 per year for full access — compare that to the aver-
age bootcamp cost of more than $11,000 just for a couple of
months! Based on the number of long-term students who say
they used Dataquest as their main or only learning resource
for data science, the platform estimates it has helped students
save at least $60 million in tuition fees.
The Dataquest team also thinks its style of teaching, which
breaks big concepts down into bite-size lessons and asks stu-
dents to apply their knowledge by writing real code each step
of the way is more effective than any other learning system.
Studies have repeatedly shown that students who get hands-on
with a topic they’re studying tend to perform better than those
who don’t apply what they’ve learned. On the Dataquest plat-
form, even a student who’s never written code in their lives will
be running their first program in under five minutes.
Dataquest’s whole system is designed to ensure that students
are continually thinking about and truly applying what they
teach. Students of Dataquest who’ve tried other, similar plat-
forms frequently tell us that Dataquest is their favorite because
it actually forces them to think about and apply what they’ve
learned.


Bestowing Real-World Exposure
The students work with real-world datasets immediately, from
the first course and throughout every course on Dataquest plat-
form. Courses also end with real-world projects that are more
open-ended, and it encourages students to put time into these
and use them as portfolio projects for job applications. Over
the course of studying on Dataquest, students will work with
real datasets to complete a wide variety of data science tasks,
including data cleaning, analysis, machine learning, deep
learning, data visualization and storytelling, and much more.

Transformative Education Empowering Data Science Skills
The Dataquest team thinks it is helping to democratize the in-
dustry and empowering people all over the world by making
these skills accessible to more people, not just to those with
the money and time to commit to a bootcamp or a university
program. And the platform is making it easier than ever for an-
yone to learn data science, with a start-from-scratch curriculum
and explanations that are easy to understand even without a
background in math or computer science.

Measuring Excellence with Achievements
The only recognition that really matters to Dataquest is what
its students say. The platform has five-star review averages
on third-party review platforms like Switchup, G2 Crowd, and
Course Report. In its recent survey of long-term students, 96%
of them say they’d recommend Dataquest, and they reported
mean salary gains of over US$16,000 after studying with Da-
taquest. Those are the kinds of achievements that matter to
Dataquest.

Trends Driving Industry-Demands
Vik Paruchuri, the Founder and CEO of Dataquest believes that
data science is increasingly what differentiates high performing
companies, like Google, from companies that aren’t growing.
Data science skills will be in increasing demand, but the titles
may shift to reflect the fact that data science is more broadly
useful in organizations. Titles will become more specialized and
department-specific.

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