Career Development Suggestions for making sense of and displaying data
September 8, 2013 3:22 PM   Subscribe

I currently work for a growing company doing various social media marketing for small businesses. I have been finding that I receive a lot of satisfaction doing activities related to what I learned in library school. I enjoy collecting, organizing, and providing data and information for our internal staff and making things approachable. One weakness I see is that we are especially data rich and insight poor with social media. I would like to know if there are any recommended programs for data mining or statistical analysis?

My company offers a tuition reimbursement program but it entails the coursework being related to something that the company would benefit from. The program could be a few courses at community college, certificate, or a masters program. I'm not necessarily looking to increase the amount of diplomas I have just gain the skills and I enjoy the academic environment than teaching myself this type of skill. I'm located in San Diego if it matters and online coursework is not a problem.
posted by andendau to Work & Money (6 answers total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Take a Tufte Course. Taught by the man himself, and you get all of his books too.
posted by rockindata at 3:44 PM on September 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


Certificate in GIS from UCR

I have this certificate. I am currently in San Diego county. It should be do-able on a commuter basis. I did the summer program. The normal program typically takes a year.
posted by Michele in California at 4:32 PM on September 8, 2013


Best answer: Take a Tufte Course. Taught by the man himself, and you get all of his books too.

I would recommend this, with the caveat that it is more abstract than analytical. You will not learn data mining or analysis from this class, but you may learn very rough and broad principles and pitfalls for data presentation.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:53 PM on September 8, 2013


Have you looked into MOOC offerings like Coursera, edX and the like?
posted by oceanjesse at 4:56 PM on September 8, 2013


Response by poster: I've poked around with MOOCs before but ideally I would prefer to have a teacher. I also have tuition reimbursement so taking a full course or program isn't a burden.
posted by andendau at 10:34 PM on September 9, 2013


I'm in exactly the same situation! I've also been looking for some good courses to take

It seems like a lot of universities that offer graduate level coursework in journalism are starting to offer courses on "data journalism" which tends to be lighter on statistical analysis and more focused on developing ways to translate data into presentable narratives.

I've seen online courses offered on U Mass's website for example.
posted by forkisbetter at 10:49 AM on September 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


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