Overview
IBM is one of the oldest and most influential tech giants pushing the frontiers of Machine Learning by providing world-class resources and training. This blog post will review the IBM Machine Learning Professional Certificate. It will highlight the certification program curriculum, skills, cost, career, opportunities, salaries, etc.
Although many Machine Learning jobs require some university degree, the importance of ML Certifications cannot be overstated. They highlight and validate specific skills that are valuable to employers. The IBM Machine Learning Professional Certificate equips you with the skills to assume the role of a Machine Learning professional.
Who Can Take This Certification?
The Certificate is at an intermediate level and will require a candidate to have some background in Maths, statistics, programming language (Python), and computer science. Although it is not a requirement, the IBM Data Science Professional Certification can be helpful.
The certification is designed specifically for
- Software Developer
- Business Analysts
- Data Scientists
- Programmers, Mathematicians, and Statisticians
A good “Maths For Machine Learning” course will help – Linear Algebras, Calculus, Probability and Statistics for ML.
Skills You Will Learn
Upon completing the certification, You will learn skills to help you function as a Machine Learning specialist/professional. They include:
- Ensemble Learning
- Data Science
- Artificial Intelligence
- Feature Engineering (to make better inputs)
- Python Programming
- Statistical Hypothesis Testing
- Decision Tree
- Supervised Learning/Regression/Linear Regression
- Exploratory Data Analysis
- Ridge Regression
Certification Program Curriculum
The IBM Machine Learning Certification Program is a self-paced, online training offered through Coursera. It consists of 6 courses. These courses cover a range of topics including Deep learning and Reinforcement learning, Supervised and Unsupervised learning, Regression, Classification, Clustering, etc. Each course has a mini-project for hands-on practice.
The Component courses and their brief description are as follows;
- Course 1: Exploratory Data Analysis for Machine Learning – It covers data retrieving and cleaning, Exploratory Data Analysis, Feature Engineering, Inferential Statistics and Hypothesis Testing. 14 hours
- Course 2: Supervised Machine Learning: Regression – It covers an Introduction to Supervised ML and Linear Regression, Data Splits, and Polynomials Regression, Cross Validation, Regularization Techniques( Ridge, LASSO, and Elastic Net), and Regularization Details. 20 hours
- Course 3: Supervised Machine Learning: Classification – Covers Logistic Regression, K Nearest Neighbors, Support Vector Machines, Decision Trees, Ensemble Models, Modelinf Unbalanced Classes. 24 hours
- Course 4: Unsupervised Machine Learning – It covers Introduction to Unsupervised Learning and K Means, Distance Metrics and Computational Hurdles, Selecting a Clustering Algorithm, Dimensionality Reduction, Nonlinear and Distance-Based Dimensionality Reduction and Matrix Factorization. 23 hours
- Course 5: Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning – It covers Introduction to Neural Networks, Back Propagation Training and Keras, Neural Network Optimizers, Convolution Neural Networks, Transfer Learning, Recurrent Neural Networks and Long-Short Term Memory Networks, Autoencoders, Generative Models and Applications of Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning. 31hours
- Course 6: Machine Learning Capstone – It combines skills gained in all the other courses to build a Capstone Project. You can add this to your Portfolio.
The total certification course bundle is about 130 hours.
Cost and Duration
The certification program is available through a Coursera paid subscription of $39 per month(depending on your location). Considering you will spend about 2-3 months to complete the certification, the cost will be $78 – $117 for the duration. This is relatively cheap compared to what you will pay for a boot camp or a degree.
Job/Career Opportunities, Salaries
The demand for Machine Learning skills is increasing. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future Job Reports, the Job demand for AI and Machine Learning Professionals is expected to grow by 40 percent or 1 million from 2023- 2027. Some of the roles that are available to you as a Machine Learning professional include
- Machine Learning Engineer
- NLP Scientist
- Data Engineer
- Machine Learning Cloud Architect.
The salary of a Machine Learning Engineer is on average $166k per year. (Indeed.com). The employment spectrum is wide – Finance Services, Advertising, Healthcare, Entertainment, eCommerce, Cybersecurity etc.
Certificate and Industry Recognition
IBM issues a Certificate of Completion through Coursera upon completion. IBM is a leading Institution for Machine Learning and their certificate is credible. Demonstrating the skills gained from this certificate can get you employed in a Machine Learning and related job role.
Degree Credits
Completing this certification will qualify you for some degree credit for further studies. The current eligibility is for a Master of Science in Information Technology, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- IBM is a globally recognized brand
- It allows you to gain useful ML skills in a relatively short time
- It is relatively cheap, requiring only a Coursera subscription.
Con
- It issues a “certificate of completion” rather than an actual certificate. Certificate of Completion is less credible than a Certification from writing a professional exam.
Final Thoughts – Is It Worth It?
Yes, the certification is worth it – The IBM Machine Learning Professional Certificate can equip you with skills to work as a Machine Learning Professional, the courses address core subjects of ML, It is Industry-recognized, the cost is fair, the duration is just 2-3 months completion time. The demand for Machine Learning skills is snowballing, this is one of the few certifications that can help you quickly take advantage of the demand.
Link to register for the Certificate IBM Machine Learning Professional Certificate
You may also want to consider reading: NAVIGATING IBM DATA SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
