Learner Reviews & Feedback for Databases and SQL for Data Science with Python by IBM

This course was structured well and very informative. I was able to understand everything well even with very minimal SQL and Python knowledge at the beginning of this course.

One point of improvement is the service credential/connection issue faced by many people that prevented us from doing the assignments and thus continuing with the course. For me, the root of the problem was the location of my account (I chose the US instead of London, UK). The organisers of this course should further look into the cause(s) of the connection problem and ensure that it gets fixed ASAP.

The course itself was very interesting and well organized. However, I second previous comments underlining the issues with Db2. It took me at least an hour with around 30 failed attempts. I was only able to access Db2 after switching the location to Dallas. I also agree with some learners that the peer review assignment was a source of frustration. I received 2/26 even though my answers included all required elements with correct outputs. Overall, it was a good learning experience so I still would recommend this course despite the aforementioned hiccups.

Efficiently taught me how to perform SQL queries. I had several issues with accessing DB2 (which wasn't Coursera's fault) which negatively impacted how quickly I wanted to finish the course. There was one question on the final assignment that the wording should be changed to make the question more clear. It reads, "List the average safety score for all types of schools." It would be more clear if it read "List the average safety score for each of the types of schools." Overall I came away with a good understanding of the course material.

The class was very enjoyable and very easy to follow. My only complaint is that if the final assignment is going to be assigned such a high weight, then it should require more than 1 person to review it. My assignment met criteria to receive full points, but the person who graded mine clearly blew through it and assigned me partial credit where I should have received full credit. I still passed and enjoyed the class, but it was frustrating to successfully complete the assignment only to be dinged by some inattentive grader.

4 stars only because I think the intended coursework is pretty good but to be honest the execution is pretty average. The course will be much better if the mentors are more active in the the discussion. Right now the discussions in the forums are mostly driven by the students in the class and it will be better if the supposedly mentors are move involved to provide support. Some of the courses in edX are pretty solid in this area and I think it really adds to the overall learning experience.

the peer assignment took awhile b/c you had to do the hands on assignments in the cloud to get in and try in python. Already know databases and breezed through it all except for the submission could not figure out how to get into the cloud and where to type in the sql within python. The syntax stated "%%sql". It was %sql <query> on the same line. Learned from many earlier in discussion group. Another had the same question about invalid syntax and couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Please let me know why wont I receive my certificate upon submitting my assignment?

Why do I have to wait for reviewing someone's assignment.Moreover I have reviewed two other assignments still I did not receive any certificate.

I would be applying for a job interview where I would be needing my certificate asap but there has been this problem. Try to get rid of these problems.

The instructor or the staffs are late to give responses to any problem.

Please look into these issues

Would highly recommend the course, online learning material very good. Had connections issues with SQL server. Techy background helps. Be prepared to be patient and tackle technical connection and speed issues when running SQL queries. No course documentation warns you of the potential problems and the time estimates to complete the weekly module/tasks need to ignored. Monitor support weak as can be seen by the non-responses to questions in the forums.

This is my 6th course in the Data Analyst program. Like the other classes before this there was a lot of good information presented through the videos, the labs were very useful, and the quizzes were pertinent to the information learned in class. Also, like the courses before the final assignment is way more difficult than the practice labs and the "instructor" or coursera helpers answered ambiguously and was hard to get a hold of.

The course is good but sometimes the exercise texts are not very clear and some of the lessons are very straightforward, leaving many doubts. The course should have a larger series of exercises and an automatic correction system that facilitates the review of the exercises. In addition, it would be interesting to have a module on how to use IBMDB2 without the online platform, but through Jupyter on the computer.

Apart from errors in the open source tools for the hands on labs, this course is fantastic and well crafted to introduce Databases and SQL. the optional sections are useful for those without good grasp of knowledge about databases and their types. make sure to take them. The labs are good, but always there is connection problems. If they will fix this, it will be one of the best introduction courses out there.

Upon initiation the course does cater for people with no background with many exercises. Maybe a small introduction to python would do, just to teach the people abit on python because with assistance from youtube there are always different methods to approach the problems. Maybe a clarification of problem questions should considered. Some questions are really hard to understand what is actually asked for.

A great course about SQL and Databases but the final assignment should have been about writing python code to access database and analyze data, as shown in one of the videos where a pandas dataframe was created. Instead, the assignment made us write SQL code inside Jupyter Notebook. That was not needed at least as far as I am concerned. If we had to write SQL, we could have just done it on IBM Db2 Cloud.

As someone with zero experience with SQL, this was a solid introductory course. At the end of the course I understood many core SQL concepts and was even able to do some coding without any help. The only negative aspect I experienced was that the course used some functions that only exist in the IBM cloud that the course uses, but this shouldn't persuade someone to not take this course.

it is a very good course that I have learned a lot from, however, I got confused in too many situations when trying to run queries and complete assignments. I dont know why but instead of trying to type the proper query, the course pushed me in a way to find the proper query somewhere, copy it and that's it. A very positive point was the amazing support and quick responses from Rav.

This was a very hard class that we couldn't resolve the errors and no way of fixing it if we didn't know what the mistakes are. I tried going through the videos and assignments but it keep showing my old work but not a fresh one to practice. Appreciate all the hand-outs but I wish I can actually get it done correctly. Hopefully the next course would be user friendly.

Very good course as an intro to SQL. The materials is presented at a good rate and there are good lab exercises to practice what you learn. The final assignment really puts what you learned to the test. There is a section in week 3 about APIs that lost me and I had a hard time seeing connecting it to the rest of what was being taught, but otherwise a useful course.

This course involves good theory on databases. It makes you familiar with different databases. Further, it takes you deep into database queries and how to perform them. The best part of the course is it provides the opportunity of doing practicals on the IBM DB2 Database. Overall, it first teaches you the theory and then practical experience.

It will be better if instructor could provide more tips or attentions or common mistakes on using SQL, for example, when retrieving string results from multiple tables and joining them together, their format should be exactly same, or there will be no value though the syntax is correct. Then we will avoid wasting more time on trail and error.

I enjoyed this class. It was interesting and gave me lot of hands-on work with SQL that i needed. That being said, there were quite a few moments where I had to dig deep into the discussions to figure out how to get stuff to work with the IBM DB2 Cloud. The text/video was not up to speed with the changes to the IBM console/setup....

A good introduction to SQL and Databases, informational and easy to follow. There is a need to update the instructional material in the course to be in-line with the current IBM cloud and DB2 set-up page, new user will be lost due to the inconsistency between the instructional material and actual web page of IBM Cloud and DB2 set-up

Overall a good course, but it was sometimes difficult to get IBM's Db2 working. Some days, the database wouldn't even open and I couldn't practice. Connecting to the database from a jupyter notebook also caused errors caused by the server or database, which hindered study and practice. Otherwise, a good SQL course.

Dear IBM Program People,

Great Course. I would have preferred not waiting up to one month to get my final assignment reviewed.

That makes irrelevant the efforts a student makes in completing the course as soon as possible to start learning other courses. That is the only reason I give 4 stars.

Best Regards,

Pietro

Some automation in the final submission review may save time. Especially where answer is a objective type. For the subjective answers always peer-review is a good option which is in practice. Otherwise, it's a great course helps someone to start their journey in SQL with exposure in IBM cloud space.

A good, but shallow, course for learning basic SQL and Relational Database concepts. Good for those looking to learn the fundamentals and start working hands-on as soon as possible. Those looking to learn beyond the basic should look for other sources in concert with, or instead of, this course.