Short course

Data Analytics Boot Camp

Short Course from the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Learners work their way through the industry’s most popular programming languages, software, and libraries in data analytics.

Start date
22 February 2022
Duration
24 weeks
Time commitment
10-12 hours per week
Mode
Online
Cost
£7,200
Subject
Data Analytics and Visualisation; Machine Learning
Level
CPD
Credit
Non-credit
Assessment
Portfolio

The Data Analytics and Visualisation course provides students with the knowledge, skills, and expertise to turn Big Data into Bigger Answers. Starting with Microsoft Excel⎼and advancing through Python, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, API Interactions, Social Media Mining, SQL, Hadoop, Tableau, Advanced Statistics, Machine Learning, R, Git/GitHub, and more⎼students work their way through the industry’s most popular programming languages, software, and libraries in data analytics.

Is the programme right for you?

  • Are you a creative, curious, and ambitious individual looking to join the data revolution? If so — or if any of the following describes your situation — enrolling in our boot camp could be the opportunity you’ve been seeking:
  • You are currently a professional working with data, but are looking to advance your career by building technical skills
  • You are a manager or professional in a business where data can be used to boost your company’s bottom line
  • You have interests in visualising social, consumer, or popular trends
  • You are looking to enter a new field — healthcare, government, or media, for example — and are looking for a way to jump in
  • You are looking for a comprehensive data course that fits with a busy lifestyle or current 9-5 employment

The skills you’ll gain

Our curriculum is based on hands-on learning. Through an immersive classroom experience, you will dive into in-demand technologies and collaborate with your classmates to apply your new skills on comprehensive projects. These projects will become part of your professional portfolio, showcasing your skills to help you stand out in today’s job market. Over 24 intensive weeks, you’ll learn the specialised skills for data analytics, including:

Intermediate Excel

  • Pivot tables
  • VBA scripting

Fundamental statistics

  • Modelling
  • Forecasting

Python programming

  • Python 3
  • NumPy
  • Pandas
  • Matplotlib
  • API interactions

Databases

  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • ETL

Front end web visualisation

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Bootstrap
  • Dashboarding
  • JavaScript charting
  • D3.js
  • Geomapping with Leaflet.js

Business intelligence software

  • Tableau

Advanced topics

  • Big Data analytics with Hadoop
  • Machine learning

What you will learn

  • University of Birmingham Data Analytics Boot Camp puts the student experience first, teaching you the knowledge and skills to collect, analyse, and visualise big data.
  • Learn to turn data into insights through a market-driven curriculum that covers intermediate Excel, Python programming, JavaScript (D3.js, Leaflet.js), HTML5/CSS, API interactions, SQL, Tableau, fundamental statistics, machine learning, R, Git/GitHub, and more.**
  • Work together with your peers to tackle complex projects and get hands-on training through experiential learning opportunities.
  • Complete projects using real data sets from the worlds of finance, healthcare, government, social welfare, and more—allowing you to build a strong portfolio with a professional demonstration of mastery.
  • Receive a Certificate of Completion from University of Birmingham, showcasing you accomplishment to future employers.
  • Benefit from a wide array of career support services like CV and social media profile support, technical interview preparation, portfolio reviews, soft skills training, and coaching from our dedicated career services team to help further your career.

**The material covered is subject to change. Our academic team adjusts to the market demand.

How to apply

In order to enrol on the programme:

  • You must be over 18 years of age.
  • You must have a GCSE grade A-C or 9-4 in Maths.
  • You must meet the English Language proficiency requirements outlined below.
  • You must have passed the admissions interview, skills test and academic interview.

Apply now

Scholarships

For 2021 entry, the University has up to 50 scholarships of £4,000 available.

Women in Tech Scholarship

The Women in Tech Scholarship will be available to students who are:

A female resident from the West Midlands looking to enter or progress within employment in the digital sector - Learners must have a passion for technology and commitment to a career in the tech industry.

Access Scholarship

For groups underrepresented in the tech industry. The scheme provides support for:

- unemployed people into digital employment

- those in employment looking to re-train (working in low paid, insecure employment to retrain to move into digital employment)

- low-waged residents to enable them to enter new digital occupations and careers (household income is below the national average - below £42,875)

Scholarship information

 

 

Over the course of 24 weeks, you’ll attend informative lectures and take part in a variety of individual and team exercises, working independently and in groups, in the classroom and at home. Homework assignments provide an opportunity to apply what you’ve learned and build on it.

What the course provides:

Effective Learner Support

Each class of 25 learners has one instructor and two Teaching Assistants to teach them during class hours.  Additional support is provided through in-person and virtual office hours, 1:1 supplemental tutoring as well as a dedicated #Slack channel where learners can get assistance from instructors, support staff and fellow classmates. A boot camp

Learner Success Manager works individually with each learner to ensure their progression and completion.

Careers Service Curriculum

Throughout each course, learners build a compelling portfolio of works—all reviewed by an instructor with years of professional experience in the field. In addition to being educated on tools, skills, and processes, learners receive access to a Career Director to help prepare learners for employer competitive success after graduation. 

Career support is based on Knowles theory of adult learning and learners have a choice of completing 7 milestones that either prepare them to be employer-ready (the basic compulsory components) or employer-competitive (the components to secure the most competitive roles). 

In addition to personalised job support (soft skills training, CV and profile reviews), learners will graduate with a portfolio of projects on github to share on Demonstration Days with Employers.

Pedagogy

Courses are extremely interactive as this is a crucial methodology for teaching an intensive course to learners with a wide range of backgrounds who wish to gain future employment in a technical subject. Interactivity is achieved through three key pillars – discussion; lab work and critically learner portfolio projects. The latter are a crucial means whereby learners acquire skills but also demonstrate their future employability. Courses are designed for interactive teaching.  No instruction goes longer than 15 minutes without an exercise and activity.

Skills/Technologies covered

During the course you will gain skills and knowledge of the following:

Advanced Excel

Python (NumPy, Pandas, etc.)

Javascript (D3.js, Leaflet.js)

HTML/CSS

API Interactions

Social Media Mining

SQL

Hadoop

Tableau

Advanced Statistics

Machine Learning

R

Git / GitHub

Module 1:

Excel Crash Course

Learn to do more with Microsoft Excel. In this module, we’ll cover advanced topics like statistical modeling, forecasting and prediction, pivot tables, and VBA scripting. You’ll even learn to model historic stock trends -- and hopefully, learn to beat the market!

Module 2:

Python Data Analytics

Gain a strong foothold in one of today’s fundamental programming languages. In the course of this module, you’ll gain deep proficiencies with core Python, data analytic tools like NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, and specific libraries for interacting with web data like Requests and Beautiful Soup.

Module 3:

Databases

Work with PostgreSQL and MongoDB to organize data into well-structured and easily retrievable data formats.

Module 4:

Web Visualisation

Building visualisations are of little benefit without a way to communicate the message. In this module, you’ll be learning the core technologies of web development (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to create new, interactive data visualizations that you can share with everyone on the web.

Module 5:

Advanced Topics

By programme’s end, you’ll be immersed in new and in-demand topics like Tableau, Hadoop, and Machine Learning.

Module 6:

Final Project

Bring everything that you have learned in class altogether to create an impressive data-visualization application with a small team. Get creative and come up with something cool to show off to the whole world!

You will receive:

A Certificate of Completion from University of Birmingham, showcasing your accomplishments to future employers

Use your boot camp certificate as evidence of your specialised skills and progress further in your career.

Career services

You will have access to career services that will help you prepare for technical roles after graduation such as: Career content and practice sessions; Online career events with industry professionals; Soft skills training; One-on-one career coaching

Project demo day

As a graduate you will benefit from a Project Demo Day—a quarterly networking event with local professionals to showcase your final project.

Portfolio

A robust portfolio of projects to demonstrate your working knowledge of web development.

100% of University of Birmingham Boot Camp learners seeking new roles found employment in relevant within 3 months. This employment ranged from global organisations like Capgemini to local start-ups.

Employability

We believe that the combination of our reverse-engineered curriculum - tailored to meet local tech skills shortages - coupled with our extensive Career Services offering means that our students are better equipped for employment than their counterparts from other training providers.

Our course participants will be qualified for many different roles, including:

  • Junior Data Analyst
  • Data Analyst
  • Data Visualisation Analyst
  • Reporting Analyst
  • Data Reporting Analyst
  • Intelligence Analyst
  • Performance Analyst
  • Business Intelligence Analyst

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