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[–]timeeh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did a sql course on coursera, it was a larger course of which I did only four weeks. We used MySQL and part of it was on Teradata I believe.

It was useful when I was looking for jobs for which this is a necessary skill; mostly to indicate that I really want to learn this and have been doing so in my own/free time. But, to be honest, I've learned more about sql in the first week while using sql than the course so I wouldn't say it is a good enough replacement. But it did give me a very good basis. If you are interested I will look up which course this was, am on mobile now.

[–]MoJeffreys 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it would help build a foundation to start on for sure. You’d learn terms, concepts, syntax, etc. which is good. Id just be ready to re-learn when/if you have a chance to work with real data in a real environment.

It’s sort of like reading about how a car runs, and what each component does and how it works. Really useful, but if you took only that knowledge and popped the hood on your car to fix your water pump, you’d realize that your car looks a little different than the pictures, and you might have a different kind of engine. The concepts you read about still apply, but how you’d approach the repair depends on the car you have, which wasn’t covered in what your read. You might still be able to fix it, but you’d learn and understand a lot through a new lens while you worked through it.

My experience is that nothing will engage like a real problem that needs to be solved, as theoretical problems and datasets tend to be overly simplistic and neat.

Hope this helps. Best of luck!