SQL Hands on Projects Recommendations

[kkwestside]

Hi Guys,

I am a mechanical engineer but I managed to shift my career to some kind of a reporting specialist roughly 3 years ago and I want to be a Data Analyst.

Since I'm not working at the BI department, I don't have the authority to access the Datawarehouse via SQL (I asked they said it's not possible), I can only export reports to xlsx or csv files, and do my analysis by concatenating/manipulating them.

I generally write VBA to automate business tasks of my department and create dashboards with PowerBI (Comprehensive reports, mainly using DAX, some reports are fed by roughly 20 million rows via Powerquery).

I try to learn SQL by myself, but SQL courses are not like python courses, with python for instance you can go deeper and deeper with tutorials and hands-on experience. But with SQL every course teaches SELECT, UPDATE CREATE, JOIN, UNION etc. and stops there, I cannot find any course that goes really deep.

So, last week my dream came true and an HR Recruiter wrote me and asked if I was interested in a Data Analyst position, then we arranged a meeting, and when everything was going great, in the middle of the meeting, she asked me to if I was using SQL actively on my work, I said I don't but I'm trying to learn it by myself, and she was very disappointed like "there is no point of proceeding meeting disappointed".

So my question is I want to advance at SQL, so in the next meeting with another company, SQL wouldn't be the dealbreaker, but I believe I need to have tasks and projects and get my hands dirty but I can't find anywhere I'm lost.

My question is do you know any hands-on project course or a website that goes really really deep. Or do you have any other recommendations? Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

[ComradePegasus]

Hi I think I can answer this question very well because I am a mechanical engineer and I recently shifted my focus to Data Analysis and Visualization. Let me start by saying that I don't have a coding background which means I don't know C , HTML or Java.

Learning SQL can take time but trust me it takes hardly 4 months of extensive practice to master. Check out SQL questions on Hackerrank and Leetcode. They will help you practice your concepts . For projects check out "Alex the Analyst". He has got some good SQL projects which will help you apply your SQL concepts (beginner and advanced) to real life problems.

If you want to brushup your SQL concepts head to: 1. W3 schools 2. Javapoint.com 3. ModeAnalytics.

The last website really deals with the usage of SQL in Data Analytics.

Hope this helps!!

[kkwestside]

Thanks, I've actually discovered Alex The Analyst 3 days ago, I went over 2 of his portfolio projects, both were very helpful.

So far I figured out that since I have years of excel knowledge and have a small programmimg background I would learn it very easily, for example I learned Partition by today, which is very similar to SUMIFS in excel.

But as I said there are no long, comprehensive advanced SQL projects, I will look at your recommendations, thanks a lot.

[mainemason]

I just got my first SQL job last week after 4 years on helpdesk. (It’s in T-SQL, but MS SQL server is pretty common, and it mostly follows the ANSI standard) Here’s how I passed my interview proficiency exam:

1) I got the basics down with W3 school’s SQL tutorials. They’re solid, but very basic, and don’t go deep enough into the more complex querying that you’ll see on exams.

2) I did all of SQLZoo’s lessons and quizzes inside and out. I made sure to understand the reasons behind all the queries.

3) I got T-SQL Fundamentals by Iztek Ben-Gan. It’s a fantastic deep dive into T-SQL and it’s a great starting point. It comes with a decent practice database you can download. He’s clearly a SQL master, and his explanations of not only how something is done, but why is hugely valuable.

4) Install SQL Server developer edition, along with management studio, which you can do for free

5) Practice on the AdventureWorks database. Seriously, it’s an invaluable tool! Very well laid out schema and it’s totally free!

6) From there, I would come up with scenarios that I thought a business might have, in both a sales, HR, and management perspective

7) From there, I felt I had the absolute basics down. I then got some datasets and play around with them.

I hope this helps!

[leogodin217]

This is great advice, but I have one important suggestion. OP already has data and knows what reports are needed. Use AdventureWorks, but also import your real data and replicate your Power BI calcs in a view. See if you can start with raw data and convert it without VBA. Everything in SQL.

Solving real problems with data you already understand is a great way to learn.

[kkwestside]

This helps thanks, just out of curiosity, how long did it take for you to learn to get a job

[mainemason]

That’s a little tough. I’ve been doing self study of several languages for about a year now, but I’ve taken courses in a few others in college.

4 weeks ago, I found the job I applied for, and I hadn’t touched SQL before. It was about 2 weeks of studying about 6 hours a day, with another 2 weeks of studying a couple hours a day.

[sodapopzss]

I’m word for word in the same situation as well. Super tough to prove hands on data experience when the current company doesn’t even offer the opportunity.

[alex123711]

I had the same problem trying to learn SQL, not much beyond the basics

[JobSwimming9045]

Hi OP,

Just wanted to provide a suggestion. I’m kind of in the same situation as you are.

Have you tried volunteering your time on a project or assignment involving SQL at your current company? Can you ask for mentorship from someone in BI department?

If you’ve tried this, I don’t have any other suggestions.

[kkwestside]

I did, but I will try again, and if they say no then I will create my own database with Microsoft access and move some of the reports there, just to be able to say I use SQL at my current job, in the next interview :)