Hi:
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "Big Data Analytics" course. We have a Big Data Professional training package that prepares you for the 2 exams that are for Level 1 of the Data Scientist certification credential; and we have an Advanced Analytics Professional training package that prepares you for the 3 exams that are for Level 2 of the Data Scientist certification credential.
Each training package (Big Data Professional or Advanced Analytics Professional) is composed of multiple modules (5) and you must pass all 5 exams to earn the Data Scientist credential. There are a total of 18 classes spread between the 5 modules like this:
Big Data Professional Module 1 has 5 classes and prepares you for the Big Data Preparation, Statistics, and Visual Exploration exam
Big Data Professional Module 2 has 4 classes and prepares you for the Big Data Programming and Loading exam
After you pass these 2 exams you earn the Big Data Professional certification.
Advanced Analytics Professional Module 3 has 1 class and prepares you for the Predictive Modeling exam
Advanced Analytics Professional Module 4 has 4 classes and prepares you for the Advanced Predictive Modeling exam
Advanced Analytics Professional Module 5 has 4 classes and prepares you for the Text Analytics, Time Series, Experimentation, and Optimization exam
After you pass these 3 exams you earn the Advanced Analytics Professional certification. At the point in time when you pass the 5th exam, you are awarded the Data Scientist certification credential.
You can choose to study the Big Data Professional material only or you can choose to study the Advanced Analytics Professional material only.You can read a lot of information about the SAS Academy for Data Science on this page https://www.sas.com/en_us/training/academy-data-science/data-science-certification.html . Prices and packages on that page are the US prices. If you are not based in the US, then you should check the web page for your country office to see what they offer in the SAS Academy for Data Science program. Prices, formats, etc will vary from country to country.
The SAS Academy for Data Science, in the US, is available in 2 separate formats:
1) Classroom training format held in an intense 12 week session held during the summer, in Cary, NC (and selected other countries). The first 6 weeks cover the Big Data Professional classes and the second 6 weeks cover the Advanced Analytics Professional classes-- this year, the session starts on May 30 and ends on August 22.
2) Self-paced e-learning format, which is a combination of pre-recorded lectures and demo videos, along with Virtual Lab software access, practice exercises and case studies.
When you attend the classroom session in Cary, you attend class Monday-Friday for the 12 weeks from 9 am-5 pm. So it is an intense experience. During the 12 week session, students take all the classes and the exams are administered on campus during the 12 week period.
However, in-person training for 12 weeks doesn't fit into every student's schedule. In this case, the #2 option for training will take more time to complete as self-paced study, but the e-learning option is also less expensive. Exams in this option is a separate cost, usually to Pearson VUE, our test administrator. The content covered in the classes is the same whether you take the in-person classes or the self-paced e-learning classes. The software you use is the same in both options and the Virtual Lab (on Amazon) is the same for both options.
To get an idea of the programming prerequisites we recommend, please refer to this site: https://www.sas.com/en_us/training/academy-data-science/data-science-certification.html and scroll down to the Prerequisite Skills section and look for the information in that section. The prerequisites are listed underneath this part of the page. We recommend that you have SAS skills to the level of Programming 1, Programming 2, SQL 1 and Macro Language 1 classes. So, if you are completely new to SAS, you might consider taking some introductory classes before you make any purchase of SAS Academy training. This is where @Reeza's suggestion is a good one. The 2 free e-learning classes -- Programming 1 and Statistics 1 are very good classes to start with if you are completely new to SAS and are interested in the Big Data Professional, Advanced Analytics Professional or Data Scientist certifications.
The above web page also shows you the names and descriptions of the 18 courses that are in the entire program. Click the + sign next to each course title to see the content in each course.
The SAS Academy for Data Science, especially the Advanced Analytics Professional level is best suited for those with a strong background in applied mathematics (to the level of Calculus 2 and Linear Algebra). A master’s degree or higher in a quantitative or technical field is recommended, but not required.
The SAS Academy program, no matter which option you choose, will include study of SAS programming techniques, SAS Enterprise Miner for data mining, SAS Text Miner, SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Visual Statistics, SAS DataFlux Data Management Studio, SAS/Access for Hadoop and SAS, SAS/STAT, SAS/OR, and SAS/ETS programming.
All of your software access for the SAS Academy classes is available in our Virtual Lab on the Amazon AWS server. That means you will need to have an Internet connection to do your practices on the Amazon Virtual Lab. You will need to access the Amazon Virtual Lab using a browser. You do not install any software on your local machine for the Academy classes. For your planning purposes, please refer to the document, here, https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/en_us/doc/other1/Training/time.pdf which explains the weekly time commitment for the e-learning only program, based on the module(s) you purchase.
To read some more information and interviews with Data Scientists, working in the field, to get an idea of the type of work they do and the type of experience they have, please refer to these web sites:
http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/analytics/what-is-a-data-scientist.html
https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/articles/analytics/tracking-down-answers-to-your-questions-about-...
Hope this information puts the Data Science program into better perspective for you.
Cynthia
