Hey there, data pro. You've come a long way since the beginning of your learning journey. Congratulations on your accomplishment. Just think of all the skills you've learned along the way. You now know how to use structured thinking to define a problem and ask the right questions; work with spreadsheets, databases, and tools like SQL to organize and transform data; clean your data to make sure it has integrity before you analyze it; create impactful visuals to illustrate key points; and craft a compelling story to communicate insights to stakeholders. That's an impressive list of skills, but we're not done yet. Your skills set's about to get even bigger. In this course, you'll learn about a new concept called programming and how you can use the R programming language to analyze your data. By now, you know that the data analysis process includes six phases: ask, prepare, process, analyze, share, and act. Now, we'll learn all about the R programming language and how it can help you in each phase of the process. When you're done, you'll be presented with an optional case study. The case study will give you the chance to solve a data analysis problem using all the skills you've learned in this program. You'll find out more about this project later on. Let's talk about computer programming. Computer programming refers to giving instructions to a computer to perform an action or set of actions. You can use different programming languages to write these instructions. You might choose a specific language based on the project you want to pursue or the problem you want to solve. The R programming language is super useful for organizing, cleaning, and analyzing data. If this is your first experience with computer programming, welcome. When I first started learning about data analysis, I didn't have a background in programming either. In fact, before I fell in love with data, I was trained as an opera singer. I also have a lot of friends that came into this field from the arts and learned about programming later in their career. R is a great place to start. Learning R for the first time can be challenging and even more empowering. A lot of the skills you've learned in this program will help you learn basic programming concepts. Take it one step at a time and go at your own pace. Just like in previous videos, you'll start with the basics and move forward from there. You've tackled tough challenges before and you always come out on top. You've got this. Let me introduce myself. My name's Carrie. I work as a research manager at Google. I lead a team that researches the best way to improve the performance of people in organizations. In other words, I help people work better and work smarter and help organizations function in a healthy and productive way. I first learned R as a junior data analyst, while I was working on a multi-year project about virtual work. We were looking at data on people's virtual work experiences and trying to understand how working remotely impacts performance. It was a complex project with a lot of data to sift through. I kept encountering problems and searching for better and faster ways to do things. This is when I became aware of the power of R. Whenever I got stuck, I'd learn a little more about R and discover a solution to my problem. I soon realized that R could help me do almost anything involving data even better and faster than I thought possible. Fortunately, there are tons of great online resources for R and a super supportive online community. If I had a question, I'd go online and find the answer. As the project progressed, I was able to learn more and more and become a much more effective data analyst. My teammates even started coming to me for advice about R. Realizing that I could continue to learn my skills at any stage in my career was an empowering experience. Learning R unlocked my ability to perform data analysis at the highest level. In your future career as a data analyst, you'll have the opportunity to continually learn and grow. To me, that might be one of the coolest aspects of the job. Learning R is one of the most rewarding parts of that growth process. I'm still learning new ways to use R all the time. Plus, you can apply these skills to other programming languages like Python, Julia, or JavaScript. There's no limit to how far you can go with programming. It even goes beyond data analysis. After I learned R, I found myself thinking about all kinds of projects I could use programming for, both at work and for fun. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Now, let's talk about what you're about to learn. We'll start off with an introduction to programming languages. Then we'll take a closer look at R itself and explore its main features and functions. We'll also cover some basic programming concepts and learn how to use them effectively in R. Next, we'll learn how to work with data in R. You'll discover how R can supercharge your data analysis skills and let you clean, transform, visualize, and report data in new and more powerful ways. Learning R will help you take your data analysis to the next level. It'll also look great on your resume. R is widely recognized as a key credential in entry- level job positions. Knowing how to use R will give you a big boost in your job hunt and will help you stand out as a new analyst. Coming up, we'll talk more about programming languages in general and how they can help you analyze your data. After that, we'll jump right into R. Before you know it, you'll be using R to power your data analysis.
