This is definitely the weakest course in this specialization
so far which is telling, because the whole package and concept has been extremely
bad so far. Please be aware that you will not learn how to analyze data, in
spite of the title. You will learn about a bunch of – useful, I admit –
formulas and functions, but there is no mention how to read the results you
receive and what are they telling you. Please note the use of the word “about”
in the previous sentence. This is deliberate. You will not learn how to use the
functions, different situations they might come useful etc. They are shown with
no context whatsoever. This applies mostly to the SQL commands. We are
bombarded with more and more complex functions with absolutely no explanation,
and the quizzes and challenges openly instruct: copy and paste this command and
see what happens. Google evidently has zero respect for the students and just
wanted to join the mass MOOC hysteria that started during the pandemic.
I have no idea who is the target audience for this
specialization and this course in particular. On one hand, they treat you as if
you’d never seen a spreadsheet or even a number before, on the other, in order
to understand certain topics you need to already be an expert. I really don’t
understand why didn’t google create separate courses for SQL and spreadsheets
using the BigQuery and Google Sheets respectively. Instead, we have this vague
and pointless division into “preparing data for exploration”, “cleaning data”
etc. that is generally superficial and repetitive.