Programs

In this digital age, more companies are making use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to increase productivity. But as a result of this shift, organizations face an entirely different leadership challenge. What do leaders need to know to effectively integrate AI into their organizations? And how do leaders design organizational structures that take into account the roles of humans and machines in integrated teams? If you are a manager or leader of a technical team, analytics group, or any other function that leverages data science, this program will help you to better understand AI and the opportunities and risks of an AI-driven organization.

Northwestern’s Business Analytics for Decision Makers certificate program program is geared to mid- and upper-level managers in strategic planning, analytics, operations, and many other roles, who need to better understand and communicate the value that business analytics can bring to their organization. In this six-week course, students will work to build initial action plans to enhance the application of analytics within their organizations by investigating aspects of analytics including requirements, benefits, limits, and organizational effects. This investigation will include assessing the competitive environment and planning context; exploring the skills needed to implement and communicate analytics’ value across the organization; categorizing the implications of planning coming out of analytics; integrating analytics with other strategic processes; and defining data and skilled resource needs across the organization and beyond.  

Northwestern’s Business Analytics Online Certificate Program is designed for professionals in the field of analytics who aspire to managerial or leadership roles in their organizations. Students will gain a practical understanding of how to use the business analytics process to harness the power of big data to gain actionable business insights. They will not only learn the mathematics behind the analytics, but how analytics drives business decisions and competitive advantage. In addition, students will learn best practices on communicating results to management so that the "actionable insight" isn't lost in the analysis.  

We live in a day when data is quite literally raining from the sky. Artisanal data analyses that rely on point-and-click methods make it hard to keep up with the increasing number of analyses that are needed in nearly every organization and department.

The Analytics iCademy has a variety of competencies that provide foundational and advanced resources to ease the burden you face when learning about data analytics. Within each competency, skills are organized based on the analytic platform that you want to learn, such as Excel, R, or Python. Each skill is designed so that you can complete it in a relatively short amount of time and at your own pace, and when you’re ready to do so.

Students in Northwestern’s Communication with Data graduate certificate program build the data and analytics skills needed to communicate complex data accurately and effectively. The courses in this certificate are designed to help those in communication roles work with data analysts within their organizations to translate data into images and stories that executives and customers can understand. Credit earned in this four-course certificate can be applied to Northwestern’s MS in Information Design and Strategy program. Classes are held entirely online.

The Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate in Power BI (MCSA) certification validates the ability to create and optimize data visualization techniques via specific tool types. This certification ensures that students can create and identify key performance indicators, and successfully manipulate and cleanse data.

Students in the Data Analytics for Business Professionals certificate acquire technical analytics communication skills, enabling them to effectively manage analytics teams, translate analysis into business objectives, and improve their evidence-based decision-making abilities. Data Understanding and Preparation, the first core course in the program, guides students through sourcing, preparing, and manipulating their data. In the next course, Data Visualization and Storytelling, students will 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. Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning, 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.

To enroll with the discounted TechReady Illinois price, email Karine Bravis at [email protected] For more information about the program, visit the program webpage.

The Data Mining specialization teaches data mining techniques for both structured data which conform to a clearly defined schema, and unstructured data which exist in the form of natural language text. Specific course topics include pattern discovery, clustering, text retrieval, text mining and analytics, and data visualization. The Capstone project task is to solve real-world data mining challenges using a restaurant review data set from Yelp. This course is offered by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (via Coursera). Completion of this Specialization results in a University of Illinois certificate.  

Students in Northwestern’s Graduate Certificate in Analytics and Modeling program build foundational skills and knowledge in preparation for data science and analytics work in virtually any industry. Students learn techniques to test real-world predictions about data — exploring data, identifying appropriate models, and validating those models. With a focus on traditional methods of applied statistics, this certificate prepares data scientists to utilize algorithms for predictive modeling and analytics, developing models for marketing, finance, and other business applications. Credit earned in this four-course certificate can be applied to Northwestern’s MS in Data Science program. Classes are held entirely online.

Students in Northwestern’s Graduate Certificate in Analytics Management program build foundational skills and knowledge in preparation for data science and analytics work in virtually any industry. Analytics managers bridge the work of analysts and modelers with business operations and strategy to help address future business needs, identify business opportunities, and translate the work of data scientists into language that business management understands. This certificate equips data scientists with the communication and management strategies needed to be data-driven leaders who utilize models, analyses, and statistical data to improve business performance. Credit earned in this four-course certificate can be applied to Northwestern’s MS in Data Science program. Classes are held entirely online.

Students in Northwestern’s Data Engineering graduate certificate program add to their data science, engineering, or computer science backgrounds by learning to utilize system-wide problem-solving skills, choose hardware systems, and build software systems for implementing models made by data analysts to scale in production systems. Credit earned in this four-course certificate can be applied to Northwestern’s MS in Data Science program. Classes are held entirely online.

Students in Northwestern’s Graduate Certificate in Health Data Science build foundational data science skills (R programming, statistical analysis, data modeling) that are increasingly essential for many industries, and also gain exposure to and practice with the unique complexities of health data and the care that must be taken in handling them. Courses in statistical analysis and predictive modeling provide hands-on experience analyzing real health data sets, which are often messy and unstructured, while courses in data visualization and health analytics leadership emphasize how to effectively communicate analytics insights to stakeholders across an organization. Credit earned in this four-course certificate can be applied to Northwestern’s MS in Health Analytics or MS in Data Science programs. Classes are held entirely online.

When it comes to query language for relational database management systems, SQL is the industry benchmark. This hands-on course will help you advance your knowledge and keep pace with today's SQL standards. You will practice designing, writing, and testing complex SQL queries to execute on a practice database using SQL Server Express.

Businesses run on data, and data offers little value without analytics. The ability to process data to make predictions about the behavior of individuals or markets, to diagnose systems or situations, or to prescribe actions for people or processes drives business today. Increasingly many businesses are striving to become “data-driven”, proactively relying more on cold hard information and sophisticated algorithms than upon the gut instinct or slow reactions of humans.

i.c.stars provides a paid ($200/week) 16-week project-based internship at our learning studio (currently virtual) to help underserved young adults jump start their careers in technology. This includes daily relationship-building and mentorship from industry practitioners. Graduates of i.c.stars see a 300% earnings increase and are working in roles such as QA Analyst at US Foods, Information Security Apprentice at Accenture, Associate Software Engineering at Discover, among others. Badging and industry certifications depend on the client project, and have included UiPath (robotic process automation platform), Enterprise Security Fundamentals, Querying data with Transact-SQL. Support continues for 20-months, combining professional development, mentoring and continuing access to wrap around support. In addition, students can achieve 24 prior learning credit hours with a higher education institution.

Northwestern’s Math for Data Science post-baccalaureate certificate program provides students and professionals who are seeking to build math and analysis proficiency with an excellent opportunity to strengthen their quantitative background for graduate school or to enhance their data analysis skills for their careers. Consisting of courses in applied mathematics, statistics, and calculus, the program provides students with a quantitative foundation for data analysis—a critical skillset that is applicable to a wide range of industries.

The University of Chicago’s eight-week Python for Data Science program introduces the basic concepts of Python as a programming language. This highly technical program is project-based at its core and you will be presented with many practical examples before being afforded an opportunity to create and run your own Python projects. 

Students in the graduate certificate in Sports Analytics build the skills necessary to work in today’s data-intensive and data-driven sports world. This online certificate provides the technical and leadership training required for key positions in sports team management and analytics. Building upon Northwestern's graduate program in data science, it reviews key technologies in analytics and modeling, probability theory, applied mathematics, statistics and programming. It shows how analytic techniques may be used in evaluating player and team performance and in sports team administration. Credit earned in this four-course certificate can be applied to Northwestern’s MA in Sports Administration or MS in Data Science programs. Classes are held entirely online.