This course started out okay with the instructor going through everything but as soon as the first assignment started the course showed the cracks. Most of the assignments are not clear on where to start for the practice sheet as it is not linked in the assignment PDF you have to try to search to find it in the discussion forum written by the instructor. That practice sheet for said assignment IF you find it often will give you an error and not allow you to access it on mode. Example "page not found or moved" error. None of the staff responds to you and almost all of the learners are asking for the same help and questions related to finding the practices we are supposed to do. Unfortunately this course is required for the specialization so you must complete it.

I had to abandon this course and the entire SQL specialization with it. This style of instruction is terrible. Too much time is devoted to learning spoken details of the instructional dataset, and one's ability to pass assignments depend on your ability to memorize those details from the video. They could have just provided an ER diagram and shared key details in writing with the assignment itself. Every other course I've seen focuses the video instruction on generalizable lessons and concepts, but I did not feel like I was learning any. With little meaningful content, I tried to limp through the assignments hoping the next course in the specialization would be better, but I won't ever get there because now I'm stumped by the final assignment. It's over.

The solutions of the exercises are very slow paced and not easy to read. There is no real chance to practice a lot of SQL during the course and know if what you have done is correct. Some questions of the quizzes are very ambiguous and specific, designed to trick you beyond a good amount. The peer review project was a pain to do, since the instructions are not clear. I had to resubmit it 3 times due to the link not working. I could have saved days of work and waiting if the ways of using Mode were stated clearly and explained. Mode is also not very intuitive to work with and not ideal for this class. Hard to follow overall with videos which were really slow and boring but omitted important information at the same time.

I think the instructor is trying to start from a point that is well more advanced than just finishing the first prong of the specialization, so there's a gap in the sequence.

For this course, you are prompted to create an account on mode.com where there's a virtual machine that runs postgresql. When doing the exercises, I found cases where I would get a different result than the solution video, even when I had literally typed the same query as the instructor. There was even a case that referred to a table that didn't exist, so it is very frustrating.

I feel the material is scrambled and the concepts are not presented as you would in a course. This looks more like a walkthrough,

This is a very practical course, with barely no theoretical aspect. You will get more experience of SQL with this course, that is for sure. The videos have very little actual content, they are more an introduction for the practical part that follows.

However, the instructor builds a sequence of strangely named metrics, and supposes you master it in a second. This is especially unhelpful for the project, where the questions are poorly presented and keep on using this vocabulary.

You will have to use another platform to test your code, which is not a bad thing per se. The problem is that this platform is far from intuitive…

This course seems to lack proper planning.

This course was not planned out well. I would be hard-pressed to believe that the people who created this specialization had any pedagogical training whatsoever.

Many of the exercises are only partially written and are littered with inconsistencies, typos, and poor instructions. I would suggest to the course creators that they should hire an editor, or at least someone to look over these courses prior to hitting publish.

I honestly would not recommend this specialization to anyone at any stage of learning SQL.

I did like that this course chose to use Mode to run the SQL queries. They seem to have many example datasets already loaded.

I found this course really difficult to follow. The directions for the quizzes were confusing, and some of the datasets and examples were outdated. The final assignment workbook function was a hassle; I had to submit it TWICE because the first workbook couldn't be shared, so most people in the course ended up using Google Docs, GitHub, or plain text instead. This course might be more suitable for advanced learners rather than those like me who are just starting. It just doesn't seem to match the title claims to be. I apologize for the low rating and please fix the course ASAP.

Very sad to be writing this review as I was looking forward to this course after completing the first offering in this specialization. This course isn't for me. I completely understand that datasets may change over time, but someone must update course content so that the examples on screen match what students are doing at home. I really liked Kat because she is obviously wicked-smart and presents well. But I have a hard time paying for training that seems to be somewhat haphazard in organization. Just my 0.02. I'm out. Good luck to all...

~BEB~

This course is part 2, but it is expected that you know much, really much more than you learn in course 1.

In addition, a lot of exercises are very badly explained, on the final exam, 4 of my 4 peers I had to grade, could not submit their work, due to the use of a very badly explained software where you had to create a report.

It is also expected that you know how web-sites and events work, for me this was the biggest challenge, due to not have a background in this industry.

A lot of stuff you need to do, is not explained!

I've started 'Learn SQL Basics for Data Science Specialization' and am about finished with the second course. To be honest, this specialisation is poorly planned; the second course does not correspond with the first, some topics (such as PARTITION, AND-WHERE inside subquery, etc.) are not discussed at all, and Mode Analytics frequently stops operating due to its 10Mb limit. Let's have a look at how the UC Devis teach Tableau. As for SQL, they definitely failed.

this course/module is vague, the instructor needs to revise the course and deliver the content in more efficient way. the instructor herself sometimes made so many mistakes. the dataset is difficult to understand, and she can tell her story with a more understandable dataset. understanding the steps for retrieving the results is totally a chaos for the learner. please either remove this course from the certificate or update it in a more proper manner.

Very poor organization, there's no explanation of how to improve the coding, the guides about how to use the programming tool are not updated to the current look. A lot of students are lost, posted questions and nobody answered them. It seems I am my own teacher here, everything was about comparing your code with the code they provided. I understood, I just have to programm myself things and tests them, better to learn by myself.

Terrible, chaotic teaching style! This is the first time encountering such a poor instructor in my entire life and I have a master's degree in engineering. I am unenrolling. Cannot believe this is an instructor who was nominated for outstanding instructor! Must be "a trophy for all" kind. Would have given 0 stars if possible. Btw, absolutely loved Sadie St Lawrence's course in same specialization.

This is a really bad course. Its my third data analytics course with Coursera, the first two were great. The presentations are good, but the phrasing of the questions is so vague I wasn't what I was even supposed to do for many of the first two units' practices. Then when I went to watch the solution videos many of them end mid sentence before we even get the full solution.

I dropped this course on week3. After week 1 the presentation and explanation of the material became very frustrating. The instructor has a good grasp of the subject. However, the material and its presentation to the students were not polished at all. One could do better investing time on other free tutorials. I do not recommend this course, it is not worth the $$

very poor structure. solutions not provided in an accessible or usable way. no flow between this course and the prerequisite. the 'practice exercises' often cannot be completed without viewing the solution due to a total lack of actual question to be addressed and no guidance for what you are expected to be learning. total waste of time and money

Awful explanation, with mistakes and many gaps compared to the first course in this Specialization, this course made me feel like I had no idea about the fundamentals of SQL, simply because I could not grasp any basic fundamental knowledge in this course

The worst course I've ever taken here. I left it as impossible because it is difficult to follow, without a clear structure, and the translation is even worse. I'd rather learn anywhere else, I don't care about the certificate, I want to learn SQL well.

I don't like it, The metodology is a bit confusing; I realized at middle of the course that i need to save the SQL queries in order to use latter, so, should be mandatory and will be usefull to advertise it at the beginning of the course.

This is probably the worst course i have ever taken on coursera. It is paced horribly, has no natural progression from the previous course and there is generally no structure or actual teaching in the the material. Skip this if you can.

I do not recommend this course. The dataset has been updated and does not match the instructors. I also feel that this course is a big jump from the first one. There really isn't much teaching. I will not be completeing this course.

Code in lectures not explained properly. Discussion prompts with questions asked - these questions were not covered extensively beforehand. There are videos of solutions afterwards- but these discussion prompts seemed pointless.

Poorly designed course. Exercise are not good, instructions are unclear.

Wasted so much time to figure out what to do next, how to do it with unclear instructions.

Covered important concepts but couldn't practice them through

Not able to understand anything. Have to go through videos multiple times to understand what the lecturer is saying. No references, just talking and nothing else - worst course I have taken.

I am withdrawing from this course. The firs section was great with Sadie. The second, data wrangling, is very difficult to follow, feels very unorganized and without direction.