Certificates

Data Analytics for Business Professionals

Curriculum

The Data Analytics for Business Professionals curriculum capitalizes on the University of Chicago’s top expertise and extensive resources to teach the analytical skills you need to accelerate your career. Learn by analyzing real-world problems individually and in virtual teams while benefiting from the knowledge and experience of instructors and peers.

What Do Data Analytics Students Learn?

  • How to construct a project plan
  • The fundamentals of statistical software and data maintenance 
  • The essentials of analytical management that drive project success
  • How to turn challenges into data science solutions and build executable business plans
  • The technical communication skills necessary to manage analytics teams and translate analysis into business objectives

Data Analytics Class Format

Our curriculum contains three required courses sequenced along the CRISP-DM methodology. Courses follow the same dataset, using one case from start to finish. This structure provides students with a repeatable, actionable toolkit to transform business challenges into data science solutions and build executable business plans.

  • The first two courses take six weeks to complete, the final course takes eight weeks to complete
  • All remote courses start on a Monday with a full week of self-study activities in Canvas, our learning management system
  • Weekly, self-paced learning and materials are time-sensitive
  • Weekly, self-paced learning in Canvas leads to one synchronous session per week
  • Synchronous sessions are conducted through Zoom
  • Attendance to synchronous sessions is mandatory
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Courses

Data Understanding and Preparation

| DABP12000

The first course in the program guides students through sourcing, preparing, and manipulating their data. Students learn about the history and principles of database systems, how to clean their raw data, and how to use SQL, the standard language for manipulating databases, to load and query data in databases. Students begin to learn about how to derive insights from and visualize their data using Excel and Tableau.

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Data Visualization and Storytelling

| DABP13000

Students learn to apply data analysis, data visualization, and data storytelling methods to analyze and describe patterns, and to iteratively form and test hypotheses related to the business questions. Students learn the difference between exploratory and explanatory data visualization and to understand the various types of charts available to visualize time, proportion, and space. Topics such as classification, clustering, and regression are introduced to gain deeper insights into the dataset, teaching students how to develop a clear story to deliver their findings to business audiences. Students use Tableau to create charts, dashboards, and stories.

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Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning

| DABP14000

The final core course in the program introduces students to the theory and practice of machine learning. Students will learn how to implement the most popular machine-learning techniques in use today to discover patterns in their data and develop models to predict future outcomes. They will get hands-on experience using Python to implement these techniques and learn strategies for evaluating their models and identifying the best tool to meet their business goals.

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Two people smiling at the camera during commencement. One student is holding a certificate.

Alumni Scholarship Program

Allows graduates of professional development certificate programs to receive a 20% scholarship on:

  • Any additional elective from the same certificate
  • Any single new certificate course that does not require a prerequisite
  • Any additional full certificate program: every course of the program (application is required; fee will be waived)
Contact Karine Bravais for more information