Career Occupation

This industry-leading program is intended to qualify graduates for careers including:

• Data Analyst
• Data Scientist
• Business Analyst
• Data Mining Analyst
• Data Engineer
• Data Architect

Admission Requirements

The students must meet the following criteria to be accepted into the Big Data Analyst program:

• Minimum Grade 12 or equivalent qualification or Mature Student Status*.
• If English is not the student’s first language, they are required to have an IELTS level 6.0 OR equivalent (in case of other testing standards) score to be admitted to the program. If, upon starting the program, their language proficiency proves to be significantly lower than the criteria mentioned, they will be required to take English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course at Focus College before being able to continue with their program studies.

*(19 years of age upon starting the program and qualify the college’s admission test)

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this program, the successful students will have reliably demonstrated the ability to:

• Understand fundamental concepts of big data, programming paradigms, and key analytical skills
• Demonstrate understanding of various tools and techniques of big data and its industrial applications
• Apply various tools and techniques to clean, explore, and organize data for further analysis
• Demonstrate data analysis using various data analytical methods, tools, and techniques to transform raw data into actionable knowledge
• Understand and apply next-generation big-data platforms and frameworks including Apache Spark, Hadoop, and MapReduce for big data analysis
• Demonstrate effective data visualization to form a compelling narrative and deliver clear business insights
• Demonstrate building and evaluating machine learning models and pipelines for big data

Method(s) of Evaluation

The Big Data Analyst (with Practicum) program will be assessed using both formative and summative methods and a blend of continuous Unit assessment and Graded Unit assessments. Each course (unit) has an assessment which the candidate is required to pass. The allocation of grades awarded are as follows:

• Grade A – Student has achieved 70% or above marks
• Grade B – Student has achieved marks between 60% and 69%
• Grade C – Student has achieved marks between 50% and 59%
• F (Fail) – Student has achieved less than 50% marks

Completion Requirements

To graduate, a student must meet the following requirements:

• Successful completion of all courses with a minimum of 50% (C grade) in each course
• Successful completion of the Practicum

Successful completion of all assignments and tasks required in the Career and Professional Skills course

Program Duration

Duration of the program is 52 weeks (full-time), and the total instructional hours are 1,056.

Homework Hours

Approximately 10-15 hours/week of homework is required from students to be successful in this fast-paced and intensive program.

Delivery Method(s)

The program is delivered through the following delivery models:

•   In-class instruction
•   Distance education
•   Hybrid delivery (both in-class and distance)

Required course materials

Various textbooks/reference books and other online educational materials will be provided. Please see the course outline forms for individual course books/materials.

Program Organization

The following table shows the titles of the courses in this program in the order they are provided, and the hours of instruction allotted to each course.