Knowing how to code is a useful skill to have, it makes you more attractive to prospective employers, increases your job opportunities and allows you to set up your own online business.
DataCamp allows you to learn code from the comfort of your home, but there is a question. Is DataCamp worth it? Can we rely on one app to learn the code? All of these questions are answered in the article.
It is becoming increasingly easier to learn how to code, with the numerous learning opportunities there are online.
You no longer even have to go to college to learn how to code, there are so many online training resources that teach you how to program and code.
DataCamp is one of these online resources, it is an online learning center for learning data science, Python, R, and other programming languages.
But is DataCamp worth it? This review will take a closer look at what DataCamp has to offer, what its prices are, and if it is worth it or not.
What Is DataCamp?
DataCamp is an online platform that allows you to learn data science topics and languages, such as Python, R, SQL, Power BI and much more.
It isn’t free for the most part, but you can try out the first lesson of each course for free to see what the platform has to offer and whether you think DataCamp is something for you.
As well as the courses, DataCamp also offers something called DataCamp Projects, these allow you to get real-world practice and develop the skills you’ve learned during the courses. If you wish to upgrade to DataCamp Projects, you’ll have to opt for a more expensive plan, but more on that later.
You’ll also get certification from any courses you complete. Whilst there’s no guarantee that these certifications will land you a job, they’ll certainly look attractive to any prospective employers as you’ve taken the time to learn and develop new skills and knowledge.
What Can You Learn?
The courses available on DataCamp cover a wide range of data science areas, for example you can learn about:
- Programming
- Applied Finance
- Data Manipulation
- Machine Learning
- Probability and Statistics
- Data Engineering
- Data Visualization
This is just a handful of the courses that are available, there are around 350 courses available on DataCamp.
As well as a wide range of courses on DataCamp, there are over 270 instructors on the platform, each instructor is an expert in their respective field.
Courses aren’t too long either, for example, Introduction to R only has around 6 chapters and the course lasts around 4 hours all in all. Even though it doesn’t last too long, it provides you with a solid introduction to the R programming language.
In addition to the introduction, it also has over 60 exercises that help you to practice your newfound R programming skills.
DataCamp’s Subscription Plans
DataCamp (see also ‘Is Datacamp Free?‘) has four types of subscription plans. The Free Plan is best if you’re looking to check out its courses, but most users report that the paid Standard Plan is worth it for them.
DataCamp’s Free Plan
The Free Plan allows you to check out the first chapter of every course, to let you see if you think it’s something suited to you. You can also take 3 data literacy courses and do 7 coding projects (see also ‘Best Coding Learning Sites‘) (see also ‘Best Coding Learning Sites‘). You’ll also have unlimited access to skill assessments.
DataCamp’s Standard Plan
The Standard Plan costs $25 per month. This plan allows you to access all of DataCamp’s courses, which is worth it if you like what you saw in the first chapter of the Basic Plan.
You can also take the courses on your phone and you’ll have access to the live community too.
DataCamp’s Premium Plan
The Premium Plan is $33 per month, which isn’t too much of a jump in price. This plan gives you a lot more benefits, most notably DataCamp will give you priority support. You’ll also be able to take DataCamp’s special courses on Tableau, Power BI and Oracle.
DataCamp’s Business Plans
There are also further two plans that are available to businesses.
The Professional Plan is pretty much the same as the Standard Plan, but you can sign up multiple users. This makes it easier for smaller businesses to manage employee accounts.
The Enterprise Plan is for larger organizations. You can learn more about this plan here.
Skill and Career Tracks
One of the issues that beginners can have with DataCamp is that it can be quite overwhelming in the beginning. There are hundreds of courses to choose from and it can be hard to know which one is right for you.
So, to avoid this confusion, DataCamp set up something called skill and career tracks.
These tracks include several courses that have been selected to help you achieve specific goals and will help you gain specific skills or advance your career in a certain field.
There are currently more skill tracks than career tracks available. There are currently 50 skill tracks to choose from, compared to 12 career tracks.
Skill tracks don’t necessarily focus on one singular skill instead, they may include skills that are related to one another or complement each other.
Once you complete all the courses in a track, you’ll get a statement of accomplishment that you can put in your resume if you wish.
Career tracks are a little bit different, they’re a bit broader as they contain more course content and require a lot more hours of learning. Career tracks help you prepare for a specific career, here are just a few of the career tracks currently available:
- Data Scientist
- Data Engineer
- Statistician
- R Programmer
- Quantitative analyst
- Machine learning scientist
- Python Programmer
- Data Analyst
Is It Worth It?
DataCamp courses are great for beginners, they give you concise and in-depth introductions to complex topics such as R, Python and SQL.
The quality does vary by course, so some courses may be more in-depth than others. If you aren’t a beginner, you might not find each course helpful.
We recommend that you follow the tracks, preferably the career tracks, since they allow you to gain a wealth of knowledge in a specific area and in turn, you’ll look better to prospective employers.
