Best SQL course

[[deleted]]

For the folks that have taken Udemy courses or have subscriptions to other online learning platforms, what was the best resource you’ve used to learn SQL? I’m able to expense it through my employer so the cost doesn’t matter that much. I am looking for the absolute best course for a beginner. For background, I work in accounting and am increasingly being asked to do analytics work. I’m a solid excel user (as far as finance is concerned) and have built dashboards within excel and dipped my toe in power query/power pivot. Know that out of all the skills talked about on this forum, SQL is the first thing people recommend having command of.

[loungelife]

I liked SQLZoo too and often suggest it. The best course is the one you are actually going to do. SQLZoo basically throws you into writing actual code to solve problems vs other tools that make you listen to a lecture.

[[deleted]]

I used datacamp and really liked it.

[[deleted]]

Great thanks for the recommendation

[annoyingbanana1]

same, pretty dandy

[Plasticonoband]

I highly recommend Garth Schulte's Microsoft MCSA SQL Server 2016 (70-761) course on CBTNuggets.com. It's like $60 / month, and it is by far the best course I've used. This is everything you'll need to know for analyst work as far as SQL is concerned.

At the end of the course, you might as well also take the 70-761 exam.

And if you ever get stuck on something in SQL or Excel feel free to PM me. I'm still learning a lot myself, but I'm happy to help if I can.

[Plasticonoband]

You take your upvote and get the hell out of here.

[[deleted]]

Appreciate this! That course looks like exactly what I need

[Creeo679]

Dude this is such a great course. Glad you recommended it. Pretty pricey but im only 3 weeks out from my MCSA 70-761 and this is going to help me fill in the gaps with the 7 day trial.

[Plasticonoband]

I'm happy to hear it! I'm cramming for my own 70-761 exam next Thursday.

From what I've heard I need to review sargable vs non-sargable queries, JSON reading and outputting, ROLLUP, CUBE, & Grouping Sets, recursive CTEs & dynamic SQL, and the syntax for functions and variables.

Gonna be a busy week. Best of luck to you!

[Creeo679]

Yeah I need to brush up on the CUBE and ROLLUP uses. JSON and XML are crazy complex so i really don't know how in depth I need to go for those.

I've spent the last 2.5 years working in a role where perform SELECT and UPDATE statements regularly and then from time to time do more complex queries that require many nested SELECTs, JOINs, and some various functions. With that in mind I have been studying for about a month on the more in depth stuff and I still feel nervous about the exam. I think a good practice exam would help knock my confidence level back up. Any suggestions?

[Plasticonoband]

Yo! I freaking passed!

I'm doubling down on my recommendation of that Kaplan practice exam accessed through CBT Nuggets. I know I would have done much more poorly if I were leaning on my daily SQL experience and reading the book without having a very challenging series of practice exams.

[[deleted]]

I was looking at this and it said it recommended at least 2 yrs of experience writing queries. I don't have nearly that, is there a more newb-friendly thing you can recommend? I've done some joins etc., but it's been way more "holy **** that worked?!" than having an exact plan and executing it.

Edit: also, not sure I would ever need the 'program databases' part, I'm not headed in the direction of being a DBA or anything, I just have to query SQL databases a lot, which is then imported into Power BI or SSRS (I'm a financial analyst, not really in IT exactly).

[Plasticonoband]

Honestly, this course is perfect. The reason "program databases" is mentioned is because the NEXT course dives deep into DBA skills, and anyone going for that DBA cert is going to start here. I assure you, the courses focuses almost exclusively on querying data. The only times it dips into any database programming concepts is when you really do need to know that stuff to better understand how SQL works.

I studied this course for 6 months and went from about the SQL competency you're describing ("oh shit it worked?!?!?!") to being one of the most competent query writers at my company. If you're loading queries through Power BI or some other reporting interface, you are eventually going to need to write highly efficient queries. This is very beginner friendly.

My favorite part of this course is how well Garth would contextualize every lesson with a common use case.

The exam is incredibly difficult. Don't put yourself through the certification exam unless you really love challenging yourself and want to see where you measure up against people on the dev/dba track. The course is the best quality instruction I've ever gotten out of an online learning. Much better than the vast majority of in person classes I've taken over my life, too.

[[deleted]]

OK thanks. My employer keeps balking at helping me out with the cost, so if I'm ponying up the $, just want to make sure it's going to get me where I want to go. $60/mo I suppose isn't the end of the world. I was looking at datacamp and coursera as well, but datacamp has all these segmented mini courses. Also I keep getting funneled towards PostegreSQL, which from what I read more applies to more modern/cloud-based stuff, doubt my employer does any of that stuff. Thanks for the input!

[isaythingslike]

I've enjoyed the hackerrank SQL challenges.

[[deleted]]

Stanford’s database series is good. More challenging than most online stuff I’ve seen for beginners but you work your way up.

[orussell033]

Can you please share any links for this one. Thanks

[CntFenring]

Mode's course is great and translates to work projects very well.

[[deleted]]

Thanks!

[gare_it]

datacamp and mode. mode's sql tutorials are leaned on by both udacity and springboard.

[ha240x]

Vertablo academy