Immediate gratification SQL learning?
February 23, 2011 10:40 AM Subscribe
For professional development, I would like to take a college-level statistics course over the next few months. I am also looking into learning more about SQL. What online programs are best for me?
I am looking at some continued downtime, and would like to get some further "professional development" under my belt. I already have a professional degree, so I am not really interested in degree programs.
Snowflakeiness: I feel that purely unstructured "here, read this book" stuff would not work well for me, so I would like a structured course with assignments, etc. But too much structure doesn't work well right now, as all of my local community colleges are on a fixed semester-long schedule and I would like to start now-ish instead of waiting for the summer.
I am specifically looking to do a deeper dive into business-related statistics and SQL programming. The O'Reilly School of Technology's Database Administration Certificate seems to be close to what I am looking for on the SQL side; are there others like it? (Preferably, one that offers a statistics course?)
I am looking at some continued downtime, and would like to get some further "professional development" under my belt. I already have a professional degree, so I am not really interested in degree programs.
Snowflakeiness: I feel that purely unstructured "here, read this book" stuff would not work well for me, so I would like a structured course with assignments, etc. But too much structure doesn't work well right now, as all of my local community colleges are on a fixed semester-long schedule and I would like to start now-ish instead of waiting for the summer.
I am specifically looking to do a deeper dive into business-related statistics and SQL programming. The O'Reilly School of Technology's Database Administration Certificate seems to be close to what I am looking for on the SQL side; are there others like it? (Preferably, one that offers a statistics course?)
Let me be more clear: I know what statistics is and I know what SQL is and I understand how SQL can be used to do some statistical analysis on datasets, but if you don't know either statistics or SQL it likely makes sense to learn them in isolation first and then integrate the two topics when you are more knowledgeable about them.
Hope that makes more sense.
posted by dfriedman at 11:25 AM on February 23, 2011
Hope that makes more sense.
posted by dfriedman at 11:25 AM on February 23, 2011
Response by poster: To clarify, dfriedman, I am really looking for separate classes in statistics and SQL skills. My reasons for wanting to get more of a DBA-type perspective on SQL are related to my reasons for wanting more formalized training in statistics, but there is no reason why it needs to be in one class (and in fact doing so would probably be unduly limiting).
posted by QuantumMeruit at 11:41 AM on February 23, 2011
posted by QuantumMeruit at 11:41 AM on February 23, 2011
MIT's 18.05 "Introduction to Probability and Statistics," which dfriedman linked to above, is not what you're looking for if you want to learn about business statistics. It's a calculus-based introduction to mathematical probability and statistics.
posted by Nomyte at 12:10 PM on February 23, 2011
posted by Nomyte at 12:10 PM on February 23, 2011
When I hear the phrases "learning more about SQL" and "immediate gratification" I instantly think of SQL zoo. It's possibly below your skill level, but it could be a good refresher, and it does cover a few topics I never dealt with like, self referencing tables.
posted by pwnguin at 4:36 PM on February 23, 2011
posted by pwnguin at 4:36 PM on February 23, 2011
Best SQL tutorial evar. On a Mac, you have to right click it and force it to run under Rosetta, usually forcing it to download Rosetta too, since that's not installed by default anymore.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:40 PM on February 23, 2011
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:40 PM on February 23, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
I don't understand the connection between SQL and statistics, though, sorry.
posted by dfriedman at 10:44 AM on February 23, 2011