My name is Sergio and I work as a research development engineer for BorgWarner Turbo Systems. I have a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a master’s in materials engineering. I worked at BorgWarner for two years as an apprentice before deciding to take the IBM AI Engineering Professional Certificate program on Coursera. Completing the IBM AI Engineering certificate has helped a great deal in advancing my career with BorgWarner and I think it was a major factor in obtaining my promotion. It absolutely gave me a competitive edge in the interview process.
One of the main reasons I decided to take the IBM program was because, during my time as a trainee, I had to do a lot of data analysis. I first approached the work by using Excel. I soon realized that, however, that many of the tests in the data were quite complicated and difficult to analyze without a sophisticated program. That pushed me to move past Excel and to try something new. The artificial intelligence and data analysis from this program were huge assets.
Now, as a Research Development Engineer, I am still using the skills and programming I learned during the program. Through the IBM AI Engineering Professional Certificate program, I learned how to take what I would individually analyze in Excel and instead do it all automatically, saving a great deal of time and resources. It has helped us on more than one occasion to analyze a multitude of variables more efficiently. Learning how to find patterns across multiple projects has helped us identify logical solutions.
In my new role, it is one of my duties to clean up and structure the data from our projects. One of the challenges that I have been able to overcome is to be able to input this data automatically rather than analyze manually. This allows me more time and freedom to think about what patterns we’ve seen. We are able to pinpoint these models, and then I interpret and use my knowledge from the course and make logical conclusions and solutions.
One of the things I liked most about the program was how flexible it was. Anyone with a busy schedule or a full-time position can still take this course and learn at their own pace. I also greatly enjoyed the IBM Watson Studio hands-on labs that allowed me to truly immerse myself in the material and be able to apply it to real-life cases and projects.
I have already recommended this program to several colleagues. It’s designed in a way that people at any skill level can learn and benefit. The program starts at a basic level by teaching Python. From there, you’ll build up to working with different models and doing different hands-on projects that allow you to apply your newly acquired skills.
I am a firm believer in continuous learning and in finding ways to develop personally and professionally. The IBM AI Engineering Professional Certificate program challenged me to explore new proficiencies and learn an applied skill that will grow more and more important as we progress as a society.
