SQL Beginner

Course · Web Development · 6 Weeks

A free reading course that teaches you to read, change and design data with SQL, the language that almost every website and app uses to talk to its database. Twelve chapters take you from setting up a free practice tool to SELECT, filtering, sorting, calculating and grouping, then to creating tables with rules, changing data safely, connecting tables with keys, joins, subqueries, views and indexes. The course finishes with a complete project, a bookshop database that you design, build and question yourself. Every query in the course was run on a real database, and every result you see is the real output. You also meet the habits that protect real data: checking with a SELECT before you change anything, transactions, and how to stop SQL injection. Every chapter has clear explanations, common mistakes, multiple-choice questions you answer as you read, and practice exercises, with a practice assignment for each chapter and an answer key. You need no earlier course, only a computer and a free practice tool, which the first chapter explains step by step. You read at your own pace and type the queries yourself.

Program fee: ₹0 (excl. GST). Certificate on completion, tied to a verifiable Intern ID.

Learning Roadmap

  1. Weeks 1-2: Reading data: Set up a free practice tool, load the practice database, and learn SELECT, WHERE, sorting and LIMIT, including the NULL trap.
  2. Weeks 3-4: Calculating and building: Calculate with functions and CASE, summarise with GROUP BY and HAVING, create tables with rules, and change data safely with INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and transactions.
  3. Weeks 5-6: Many tables and a project: Connect tables with foreign keys, write joins, subqueries, views and indexes, and finish by designing and questioning your own bookshop database.

Syllabus — What You'll Learn

  • What a Database Is, and Setting Up: tables, rows, columns, a free practice tool, your first query
  • Reading Data: SELECT, aliases, DISTINCT, comments, quotes
  • Filtering: WHERE, AND and OR, IN, BETWEEN, LIKE, NULL
  • Sorting and Limiting: ORDER BY, LIMIT, OFFSET and paging
  • Calculating: expressions, aggregate functions, text and date functions, COALESCE, CASE
  • Grouping: GROUP BY, HAVING, counting with conditions, first reports
  • Creating Tables: data types, primary keys, NOT NULL, UNIQUE, CHECK, ALTER and DROP
  • Changing Data: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, the missing WHERE, transactions, SQL injection
  • Relationships Between Tables: foreign keys, one-to-many, many-to-many, cascades
  • Joins: INNER and LEFT JOIN, rows with no match, self joins, the two big mistakes
  • Subqueries, Views and Indexes: IN and EXISTS, UNION, WITH, views, EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN
  • Final Project: design, build and question a bookshop database

Career Opportunities

  • Web Development (a sixth step after HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Git)
  • Junior Back-End Developer (almost every back end talks to a database)
  • Data Analyst Trainee (SQL is one of the skills that analyst jobs ask for most)
  • Full-Stack Web Developer for small business and start-up projects
  • Freelance Website and Web App Builder