Another Part of the Course Down...

Hello and welcome to part 3 of this series of posts on the Codecademy Data Science course. This post will talk about two of the modules that I was able to complete. Both modules are still a part of the SQL course. One is project based, the other falls in the Intermediate SQL section.

Queries Projects and Applications

This module is all about completing SQL projects. They give real-world exercises that pertain to actual on the job tasks you would be asked to accomplish. For example one of the tasks is to help the finance department identify potentially risky transactions before they are processed. I enjoyed this section a lot. As I have noticed with what I also do on a day to day basis these days at work these projects are on par with requests you will get asked weekly or even sometimes daily. It was a lot of fun going through these project based exercises. They aren't necessarily step by step but they also don't give you a whole list of tasks at once and expect you to figure it out. Just like you will be doing in the real world the projects are broken down into smaller tasks that by the end make up the full task you would be asked to do.

Aggregate Functions

This is the intermediate portion of the SQL section. For those of you new to SQL coming from a programming background with any language from Python to C you should be used to functions. In SQL you won't necessarily be writing custom functions as you will more likely be using the built in aggregate functions. These are COUNT(), AVG(), and SUM() to name a few. You will also be using more advanced concepts like GROUP BY and HAVING clauses with your queries. This section is really awesome as it helps break these concepts down and gets you using them right away. You get to see the full power of these functions and how they can make your queries that much stronger when looking for exact data.

A side note for those of you that either don't know or, were like me at one point, thought that SQL wasn't a real language this section will teach you that functions exist in SQL and they do make your life easier just like they do in other "real" languages. If you are new to programming in general starting your programming journey with SQL will make it a bit easier to transition to a language like Python as it reads like plain English but also helps with the logical side of programming.

Conclusion

I know this was again a bit short but I don't want these to drag on and on. Hope you enjoyed the read and as I've said before the SQL course on Codecademy is free and I highly recommend it for anyone starting their programming journey for the first time or that wants to get into Data Science as you are going to need to know how to query data in a database as well as read data. Enjoy!