Microsoft’s Professional Degree in Data Science

The program consists of some required courses with a few electives.

• Data Science Orientation
• Querying with Transact-SQL (banged this out in a few hours given my dev background)
• Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel (Could have chosen Power BI as a replacement)
• Introduction to R for Data Science (Choose between R or Python)
• Data Science Essentials
• Principles of Machine Learning
• Programming in R for Data Science (Choose between R or Python)
• Developing Intelligent Apps (Elective)
• Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics (Truly deep Stats course taught by Ivy League professors – spent the longest time here)
• The Final Project

For example, one of the electives in the Develop Intelligent Solutions module offered hands on labs in Machine Learning, Creating Bots and Stream Analytics

Alison Cunard announces the Microsoft Professional Degree (MPD) program, which she describes like this:

The first program of its kind to offer employer-endorsed, university-caliber curriculum for professionals at any stage of their career. MPD is a Microsoft-led initiative, built on the Open edX on Azure platform, providing professionals with real-world knowledge and hands-on experience to grow their skills in critical fields. The initial curriculum will focus on the Data Science Degree program providing targeted skills and experiences in the rapidly evolving data science industry.

The program provides a “subway map” that shows choices for specializing your degree. The classes cover a lot of ground, from statistics to machine learning to data analysis and visualization. You can take classes in the listed order, in a custom order, or simultaneously. You can audit any classes, including the associated hands-on labs, for free.

It’s a worthwhile undertaking, because:

Microsoft consulted Data Scientists and the companies that employ them to identify the requisite core skills. We then developed a curriculum to teach these functional and technical skills, combining highly rated online courses with hands-on labs, concluding in a final capstone project. Graduates earn a Microsoft Professional Degree in Data Science—a digitally sharable, résumé-worthy credential.

• Anonymous
  November 06, 2016
  I just started taking the course, I am lookin forward to learning as much as I can to help jump start my career. I hope that this program would help me pass one of the MSCE's so that I could be more marketable.
• Anonymous
  November 17, 2016
  I just start this course and the materials and learning tools are great, but i would like to know after completing these 10 course and the project will i be awarded a" First Degree in Data science" from Microsoft and the affiliate schools separate from the Professional certificates?
• Anonymous
  January 07, 2017
  I want to start this course but I am not sure what would the Microsoft award at completion of this course. Like is this Master degree or Bachelor ?which university will award this degree ?please reply if someone know
  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2017
    Hi these are official Degree Programmes awarded by University they are professional programmes see https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-program/data-science/ we have a number of other professional courses on www.edex.org see https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=Microsoft
• Anonymous
  January 23, 2017
  The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2017
    Yes this course is available World Wide as its a online course
• Anonymous
  February 27, 2017
  is this microsoft certified course?
  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2017
    It a Microsoft Professional programme not a certified examination see https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/faq/ the key is the professional programme is used to demonstrate a level of experience. Microsoft certified examination courses which lead to MCSE, MCSA,MTA Professional qualifications can be found at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview.aspx
• Anonymous
  June 08, 2017
  Hi Lee !Does this professional degree program (Data Science) which comprised of 10 courses is equivalent to MS degree or what will be weight-age of this degree apart from the knowledge gain through this program. If someone is already Certified in that disciplined but want to purse a higher education degree will this be helpful