Hi everyone. My name is Astrid and I'm a curriculum developer at Databricks. You can think of me as your tour guide through this MOOC. Anytime you see me, it'll mean that you're starting a brand new module. I'm based in Southern California, and since we are taking this MOOC journey together, it's probably good that we get to know ourselves a little bit. When I'm not working on training content at Databricks, I love to do things like go to the beach, play with my puppy, and I also really enjoy dancing. But enough about me, let's go ahead and talk a little bit about this module. You can think of this module as setting the last of the stage for the MOOC. What we'll cover in module 2 are things like: what is big data, and what characteristics define big data? How do people work with big data? Most importantly, why should you as a data analysts care about big data? What's the real point for you to take this MOOC? By the end of the module, you'll be able to describe common characteristics that define big data. Explain common struggles that data analysts face when working with big data. You'll also be able to describe the tools that data analysts use when they work with big data. Finally, we'll talk about Apache Spark and Spark SQL. You'll be able to explain how those two enable data analysts to streamline big data analysis. When you're ready, go ahead and click onto the next video to get started with this module.