Decision Time: Math

So, from what I had been reading, even though opinions do differ, adding some solid math skills to my arsenal would be necessary for data science success (whatever that means). So I wanted to choose a data science-related math specialization (within the Coursera universe, because I get it) that would give me the skills I need.

It seemed that there were two choices that had what I wanted:

Mathematics for Data Science Specialization (National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia); 4 courses; 4.4 rating)

Mathematics for Machine Learning Specialization (Imperial College London (England); 3 courses; 4.4 rating)

Both specializations seem like they will give me what I need in terms of Calculus and Linear Algebra. The National Research University (NRU) throws in some Statistics and Imperial College(IC) some PCA (Principal Component Analysis. Not sure what that is yet).

Both Specializations had one course reviewed far worse than the others. For NRU it was their “Calculus and Optimization for Machine Learning” course. A mix of 5- and 2- and 1-star reviews, with the negative ones focussed mostly on presentation and the teacher’s English abilities.

For IC it was “Mathematics for Machine Learning: PCA. A mix of 5-and 1-Star reviews, with the negative ones saying that the class was too hard and students had to go elsewhere often to find ways to do the assignments.

So I made my decision. My financial aid approval should be coming in the next couple days. Which did I choose? Which should I have chosen? I disclose in the comments…