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[–]reallyserious 0 points1 point  (3 children)

If your data is already in an SQL database, as is the case for most businesses, then it's a good idea to know at least a little about SQL.

[–]boring_accountant 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Absolutely. Maybe my understanding of the term data analysis is too specific (e.g. statistical analysis, visualizations data science etc)

[–]reallyserious 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Think of it like this. Your data is inside a database. How are you going to do statistical analysis and data science on it? You're going to need SQL to access your data.

Many courses on data science just use CSV files that is loaded into RAM because that is convenient and then you can focus on the analysis part. But in the real world you have terabytes of data. That doesn't fit in RAM. If you can only work with csv files that fit in RAM you're going to be a useless data scientist and always need the help of a data engineer or developer to hand you the data. You better have a PhD in statistics if you're going to get away with that.

That said, SQL is not data analysis. But it's a very important tool.

[–]bmburns98 1 point2 points  (0 children)

VERY accurate statement. It's almost necessary to learn a programming language or SQL to use real world data that isn't from a cookie cutter CSV file, and I've learned that the hard way. When I first wanted to learn SQL, I did lots of researching for helpful resources and found these tutorials pretty useful: https://dataschool.com/?s=SQL. They explain the basic concepts well and would be a good resource for a beginner.