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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Managing Big Data with MySQL by Duke University

4.7
stars
4,045 ratings

About the Course

This course is an introduction to how to use relational databases in business analysis. You will learn how relational databases work, and how to use entity-relationship diagrams to display the structure of the data held within them. This knowledge will help you understand how data needs to be collected in business contexts, and help you identify features you want to consider if you are involved in implementing new data collection efforts. You will also learn how to execute the most useful query and table aggregation statements for business analysts, and practice using them with real databases. No more waiting 48 hours for someone else in the company to provide data to you – you will be able to get the data by yourself! By the end of this course, you will have a clear understanding of how relational databases work, and have a portfolio of queries you can show potential employers. Businesses are collecting increasing amounts of information with the hope that data will yield novel insights into how to improve businesses. Analysts that understand how to access this data – this means you! – will have a strong competitive advantage in this data-smitten business world....

Top reviews

DQ

Jun 20, 2020

One of the best course till now I find on Coursera, well structured everything and practice questions made me feel like real life problems as data were from real database of dognition and ua_dillards.

YC

Aug 19, 2019

Nice and well-organized course. I joined this course after self-studying on SQL for a few days. The context is really nice. The only problem is the Teradata is not stable. I tried very hard to login.

Filter by:

701 - 725 of 919 Reviews for Managing Big Data with MySQL

By Vickie W

•

Aug 27, 2022

N/A

By FELIX D M

•

Aug 2, 2016

ok

By hafizh a

•

Jun 4, 2021

-

By Antonio B

•

May 16, 2016

.

By Lin M

•

Mar 1, 2018

What this course can improve is it should adopt the habit of thinking more instead of writing. Because in the week 5, the quiz is much more difficult than all the exercises we have done in previous weeks. And we don't have the guide step by step like previous weeks. I do know we have a week 5 quiz guide. However, when you write queries, sometimes, you do think your logic is right and query is right, why can't I get the same answer with the choices?

And when I finish the quiz and look back to the answer, I even can't find the logic difference between answers and mine but the reality is I can't get the correct result. There is only one diff I have found in one specific question, that is, I didn't use the same format to define one constraint. But I do think my way is also fine and I also get an answer I think is totally correct from the logic.

So I do suggest the answers should not be single sometimes, you should consider some specific formats or situation when students write their own queries. Don't give simple answer, give the reason why you are correct.

By Max H

•

Feb 21, 2016

I have a theoretical background in relational algebra and SQL. This course did a great job of actually applying that theory in practice in the form of business situations. By using real life data, it also accurately presented raw data as not perfectly organized or "clean". Filtering with subqueries, IN, WHERE, and OUTER JOIN statements are absolutely crucial in cleaning data in real life situations; this course did an excellent job of demonstrating that importance.

I have 2 interrelated critiques however: The usage of 2 different platforms (MySQL for the exercises and Teradata for the quizzes) was very confusing given their distinct syntaxes. I think it would have been more powerful to have the exercises and quizzes on the same platform. Furthermore, the Teradata platform was oftentimes overwhelmed by the number of users and frequently crashed. Going forward I would recommend either ensuring that the servers can handle the amount of user-load, or switching over to the MySQL platform entirely.

By Amy H

•

Mar 26, 2019

This is a really great course for learning MySQL and Teradata. Coming from a background where I've never studied computers or programming, this course was relatively easy to follow (though Teradata was definitely a challenge for me). I found the instructor pleasant and clear in describing query-writing. There were a few times that I thought we needed more explanation (especially for some of the Teradata exercises), but what is learning without a bit of challenge?! I am really excited to get into the field of data analytics, and this course has helped to open doors for me! I highly recommend taking this course - but be prepared to spend many hours in weeks 4 and 5, as the exercises can be extremely difficult.

By Derek O

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Oct 25, 2017

I really enjoyed this course, and I have no previous experience with SQL. As we got a few weeks in, queries got very difficult and a lot of times I had to look at the answer key while I was working on exercises to get hints, but that was actually very helpful. I took the course as a part of a specialization, and while it is supposed to be course 4, I took it as the second course because of enrollment dates. Now I'm taking a "Data Visualization and Communication with Tableau" (which is technically the 3rd course in the specialization), but the SQL background I gained from this course gives me a lot of context that helps me feel like I understand the inner workings of Tableau.

By Manuela

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Jul 21, 2017

I loved the MySQL exercises, it's a very intuitive way to learn how to use SQL properly. My only problem with this course was the lack of guidance for some of the Teradata exercises (most of which were then used on the graded quizzes), and also the fact and a few guidances provided were wrong or needed adjusting - it was very time consuming doing the exercises for hours and hours, and then going to the forum to discover the guidance given was wrong.

Overall, I recommend this course! Just make sure you look through the discussion forum as soon as you get stuck on a particular exercise, it will save you a lot of time!!

By Juan P A

•

Feb 15, 2016

This course should be divided in 2 o be longer for two main reasons:

1) Weeks are way too long to cover all the material, plus the research you need to do outside the platform. The time required end up being too much.

2) The course is not deep enough - There's just too much topic to cover, and because of time constrains there are a lot of holes in your education at the end.

For this two reason is better con get 2 courses about this topic. That way you can go deeper in to the SQL explanation, and can get at thee same time a better understanding of each topic, instead of getting a lot of thing to cope in just one week.

By Jacob H

•

Oct 8, 2020

The course was very well structured. I came into the course having a noice level understanding of SQL so was able to dive into the first few weeks quickly. Around half way through the course got significantly more challenging so I would highly recommend taking good notes and saving your queries. I found that saving my queries with a naming convention that as associated to my notes made the class much more manageable.

Also there were a few times I think I crashed the server or had to trouble shoot Teradata or Jupyter so make sure to pay close attention to the early lessons and directions on how to trouble shot.

By wang z

•

Nov 20, 2016

Very useful and well-designed course. Jana is an effective instructor with a great sense of humor. Her course material is easy at first and gradually gets harder, which is suited for students with no SQL background but eager to learn. But this course does require a lot of your time and dedication ---- Plan 5 hours every week and sometimes even more (week 4 and 5). It took me 2 rounds of enrollment to earn the certificate. All in all, I would recommend this course to people interested in data analytics, who want to update their knowledge beyond excel and have the time and the drive.

By David A K

•

May 15, 2021

Let me say a very big thank you to my instructor Jana for the good work done. I am most grateful.

Actually the insights gained from this course especially from entity relationship diagrams and relational schemas made it so interesting even though the exercises were tough and very detail, they were the tools that made me understand joins which forms a very critical part of the exercises.

This is actually going to play a pivotal role in my career even though I still have to deal with unstructured data to make it complete.

Once again thanks a lot Jana for the wonderful work done.

By Ytsen d B

•

Aug 25, 2017

This is actually a very hard course.

It starts off very easy by explaining how relational data bases are shaped.

Then you are taught how to manage real life data bases, which are messy.

By the end, the questions they make you exercise force you to write rather complicated SQL code.

It makes you wonder if SQL really is the best way to store (and retrieve to collate) data ...

But you'll be kind of a SQL ninja if you manage to complete the final quiz :)

By shivangi n

•

Mar 16, 2019

The course is exceptional! I am a person with non-technical background and loved how all the assignments were so comprehensively laid out which made them easy to follow.

I just felt the last week was quite heavy in comparison with other weeks. Had I practiced the same level of questions in weeks earlier, I would have completed it in less time.

No other complaints. If you are new to the language it is good course to begin with.

By John H

•

Feb 16, 2018

The pace was really good (may be to fast for some) and I learned a lot during the amount of time. The only really annoying thing was getting on the teradata (and sometimes jupyter) website. If you only have certain timeslots during the week to work on this course, and you can't log in during this time, well, that is annoying and caused me to miss deadlines. For this reason, I had to switch sessions, which cost me another 42€.

By Eunice C

•

Jun 4, 2020

A very useful and insightful course that accelerates your entry into the SQL world. The course is jam-packed with lectures, exercises and hands-on sessions. Lots of written information and tips were provided to support the learning experience. The only issues are technical ones which many students face, such as not being able to get an account to access the database so we resorted to sharing other students' account.

By Priya X

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Mar 2, 2016

Good material but heavy work-load, especially since we are learning two new skills -SQL syntax and Data analysis. Request instructors/TA's to guide students more in the forums. Analysis like computing avg daily revenue should be explained better as I spent too much time figuring it out and the forum answers were way off. However, this being an online class I was very impressed with the detailed worksheets in MYSQL.

By Chen Q

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Oct 10, 2017

It is am amazing course and I learned so much about SQL functions into real-life practice!

The only problem is Teradata. The interface's unstable sometimes, and it may interfere with studying pace of several students and deadline is unable to meet with Teradata broken down.

Anyway, it is a well-prepared, and high-quality course from DUKE University. The teaching staff and mentor's efforts are so appreciated!

By Tatiana O

•

Dec 25, 2017

It is really good. But If you need fast results and a certificate within a short period of time I strongly recommend to choose another course of SQL for beginners and probably return here later to horn your skills. It`s not like this course provide you very unique or deep information, but working with exercises and quizzes take such a significant time because of the tests themselves and data to work with.

By Zhiqing L

•

Feb 17, 2018

This is a really good course. Dr Borg's video is easy to understand and the MYSQL exercise is awesome.

I know how to write sql after taking this course and become less afraid of writing code/query.

The only reason I give this course 4 stars is that my experience with Teradata is terrible and frustrating! And their wiki website is down.....Not sure why this course uses such a out-of-date database...

By Viviana V L

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Nov 28, 2016

I really enjoyed the course and found it very useful. I can write a basic query now !! and I got a bit more understanding of how to work with databases. My only recommendation for the mentors is to work on more samples of queries using Teradata and add the answers to the week assignments. I'm still wondering a few answers and not sure if the output of my queries was the expected.

By Christoph B

•

Jun 23, 2020

Started really well, step by step - great!

But in the end I felt a overwhelmed, by really long queries, very complicated, long struggle.

Happy, that new Database was set up just before I got into trouble!

Annoying that Week 5, Last Exercise Question 12 is still not fixed: Min instead of Max. That is REALLY upsetting! Afterall, we are paying a lot of money every month!

Jana was lovely!

By Andrés F M E

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Feb 23, 2021

Overall a very complete and intuitive course, a great deal of explanation and resources, aswell as individual work to test our learning. I consider, nevertheless, that the focus on the calculations of revenue, on the Teradata excercises, is unnecessary; it uses a specific methodology for the concrete case, but is hardly applicable in other projects given the nature of the data.

By Diego C

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Jun 22, 2020

The course is very well organized and it's very useful to learn SQL. Be patient, take your time and to go through all the excercises to take advantage of its content.

However, the database platforms (in my case Teradata) was shut down for a couple of days, which can delay your accomplishment. I consider that the team of the course should warn when these issues are generalized.