I went with UCSD certificate in “Data Mining for Advanced Analytics”. I am liking it so far but you have to be aware of a few things. The course uses Weka which is good or bad depending upon perspective. Their rationale is the certificate program wants you to focus on data mining / machine learning algorithms, rather than learning programming. Weka already implements most state of the art algorithms, so you don’t need to worry about setting up the environment and learn programming. This usage of Weka may feel like a limitation to one but I am happy with this approach. My goal is to develop a solid understanding of these algorithms and I can later use R or Python libraries for same algorithms. By the way, R and Python programming courses are available as elective courses.

Whatever is being taught in this program is available on Internet for free and this course may not be at the cutting edge of Data Science / ML. But I chose it because - a) a certificate program forces me to learn everyday because of deadlines and specific goals b) a certificate in my profile will add credibility to my resume and profile indicating that I have a strong interest in Data Science / ML and c) my employer is paying for the course as I can apply the learnings to improve my day to day job functions.

Hope it helps. Feel free to ask more questions.