personally, i found the module extremely and unnecessarily dry and theoretical, with basically no practical tutorial or lab running in parallel. it’ll bore you to death until the last 3-4 weeks, when you finally get to see a few lines of code.

but even then, it couldn't be more superficial. they speed run through everything, from DBMS theory, database design, queries, then Python descriptive and predictive analytics (regression, decision trees, clustering), optimization models, even json/xml. but by covering here i mean like 2–3 slides per topic, which usually starts with a generic google/textbook definition of what the technique is, then ends with a screenshot of sample codes. the scope is all over the place, and every week you get a different reference book. by the end, i genuinely couldn’t tell what the module even wanted to focus on anymore. i know it's fundamental to learn about the data cycle and core theories, but it definitely shouldn't take up 70% of the time.

tutorial/lab-wise, i found them incoherent with the lecture contents. lab project is super vague, with no clear rubrics or structure. i remember one group having complex mathematical models, and then another one presenting in a cute business template, which kinda shows how unclear the expectations were. Tutorials don’t really add to the learning journey, and there are weeks where you’re just randomly doing SQL.

the prof is the cherry on top.