Database Systems Concepts and Design

This was my first course at OMSCS, and I chose to take it despite the not-so-great reviews. I was pleasantly surprised by the experience. For context, I work as a data specialist at a small institution and come from what I would call a flawed CS education, so even though I completed a CS bachelor's degree, I consider myself much closer to a career switcher than a traditional CS student.

The class is well organized with a clear grading breakdown:

Four exams, each worth 12.5% (50% total) A three-phase final project worth approximately 35% Participation worth 15%

Course Components

Lectures: The lectures are pretty good and cover everything you need to know about database systems fundamentals: Relational Algebra and Calculus, Normalization, SQL basics, ER design, Relational Mapping, etc.. They do a good job of preparing you for the exams. There are also methodology lectures that clearly explain what's expected for each phase of the course project.

Exams: The exams were fair, though attention to detail is VERY important (I can't stress this enough). Please read each question carefully (multiple times if necessary). Practice exams are invaluable for preparation. If you can complete the practice exam without looking up the answers, you should perform well on the actual exam.

Project: This is the most variable component of the course, as your experience will depend heavily on your group. I was fortunate to have an amazing team, and everything went smoothly, making the workload quite manageable. However, I can easily see how a difficult group dynamic could make the project extremely challenging. Be proactive early in the semester to find a strong group. While you can't predict who might drop, aim to form a team with diverse skills. Ideally, someone experienced with databases (both conceptual design and SQL), someone with backend expertise, and someone with frontend skills. Yes, frontend skills. The Project is a full-stack web application.

Grading Expectations This course is generally considered an easy B but a challenging A. There appears to be no curve. I scored in the 90s on everything and earned an A (94%). If you struggle on even one exam (and the average on the final was in the 70s) an A becomes difficult to achieve. Keep this in mind before registering; I'm providing this as helpful information, not to discourage you.

Final Thoughts Overall, I think this is an excellent course. I highly recommend it if you've never taken a database class, love databases, or want to solidify your understanding of database fundamentals. However, this course may not be ideal if you're seeking advanced database topics, looking for an easy A, or prefer to avoid group projects.

This was my first OMSCS class and I found previous reviews about it to be pretty accurate. I spent 15-20 hours per week on this class and got an A. However, take this with a grain of salt as I work as a full stack SWE and was already comfortable with databases, backend, and frontend before starting the class.

To echo other reviews, I strongly recommend learning backend and frontend development before taking this class, and/or finding teammates who have this skillset. This will save you a lot of time and headache for the group project, particularly Phase 3. Luckily for my group, I'm comfortable working across the stack and was able to unblock the team on database, backend, and frontend issues, so our development went smoothly and we did very well on the project.

This is a class about databases, so I'm still confused why students are expected to know frontend development and build a fully functional full stack web app. There is zero lecture or reading material about API or frontend development, so it doesn't make sense why so much of the project grade hinges on having a functional app and UI.

Regarding the book and lectures, I actually did find much of the material to be interesting and useful. Of course, you won't use relational algebra and calculus directly in a SWE job, but it's important to develop analytical thinking and understand the concepts behind database design.

Lastly, the exams. I didn't feel that they were intentionally trying to trick students. It's just that missing or misinterpreting a single word can change the meaning of the entire question/answer. So be sure to carefully read and re-read all questions and answers before submitting. Exams 1-3 were fair. Exam 4 seemed to be intentionally difficult, possibly to bring the class average down? I scored in the 90s on exams 1-3 and all project phases, and a 60 or 70-something on exam 4.

TLDR: Grade: A Hours: 15-20 per week Difficulty: 3/5 Overall: 4/5 Tips: Learn full stack development and carefully read all exam questions

If you go into this class expecting to learn a lot of theory, you’ll probably be happy with your experience in this class. Do not take this class without having a group that has frontend/backend development experience, because this class becomes incredibly time consuming if you’re in a group with people unwilling to learn those skills. Some past reviews complain about the TAs, but I thought they were fine and I didn’t have any issues when I requested a regrade.

Expect to spend around 10 hours/week at the beginning of the class and 15-20 hours/week near the end of the class with a good group. In a group with slackers (like I experienced), expect spending 20-25 hours/week while working on part 3 of the group project if you want a passing grade.

Exams: I studied around 20-25 hours per exam, including the time spent reading the textbook. If you read the textbook and study it a little, these will probably go fine. Practice exams are way easier than the actual exam, so prepare for more theory questions and not just the calculations/methodology covered on the practice exam.

Final Exam: This exam had a C for the median/mean grade, which is the only exam where the mean was insanely low. While all of the questions were fair to ask, there was a large portion of the exam that covered the same topic that seemed like a small mention in the textbook and was not covered in the lectures or practice exam. I averaged mostly in the 90s with a few scores in the high 80s and only needed around 65% on this exam for an A (which I achieved), so it’s definitely possible to get a terrible grade on this exam and end with an A.

Group Project: First 2 parts took around 15-20 hours for my portion, and part 3 was 50 hours. Only 1 student (not including myself) helped with part 3, so I think a more reasonable group would take 20-30 hours per person for phase 3. I had people in my group do nothing for the group project and it’s unclear how much their grade was affected by team evaluations. I know that they still got the same team grade as everyone else (separate from team evaluations).

TAs: I noticed many reviews that didn’t like the TAs, and I thought they were okay. While they occasionally said stuff like “we won’t answer that”, I think they were helpful overall. Grades are usually available 2-3 weeks after the due date, so sometimes you’ll get a project grade back <1 week before the next project deadline. While frustrating, I never struggled with fixing everything in time for the next deadline.

Don't take this class. It isn't worth it. The material in this class is more theoretical than practical. The project was an enormous waste of time (learned more about containers and front-end web development than databases). The exams are inordinately tricky for the difficulty level of the content, and it makes you feel like the staff just gate-keep good grades to keep a "healthy" curve.

TA Alex and TA Peter are both snide when students attempt to ask clarifying questions about their poorly written project writeup. Despite the fact that "Task Decomposition" is an invention of the professor's, there is very little material to model your project after, and I felt frustrated by this class more often than not.

Don't take it. There are much better classes out there.

This class absolutely sucked. I got a D in it. Brought my GPA down to like 3.4. I got A's and B's on all the other classes in OMSCS. I would avoid this class and I'm doing you all a favor. Here's why:

1. I only took this class because GA Tech has a weird system where you cannot take any in-demand, high-quality classes if you are just starting out (like Machine Learning for Trading or Deep Learning). I would reckon more than half of the class consisted of people like me, left with no other choice but to take this class that resembles something in a typical computer science curriculum

2. The TA's are snarky, snappy and snoopy. They belittle and get annoyed easily, like we work for them (even though we pay them via our tuition dollars and that makes them work for us). They don't like to repeat, help or even ignore. They will come after you with snap, curt and rude responses. So unprofessional and I have no such experience in any other OMSCS class.

3. The tests are brutal and tricky, unnecessarily so given that it is a Database class and should not be technical.

4. You are required to have at least one person versed with HTML, CSS and JAVASCRIPT or you will not do well on the group project. The rest of the group who don't know these languages well will be left to wonder if they contributed enough or how much they could do without doing anything.

5. If you want to learn CRUD operations, SQL language basics, or something similar then I suggest you watch Youtube or go on Coursera for a set of lessons. Much better and more focused on those tasks than this class.

6. Feeding off of the previous point, this class is not so much about SQL as much as building useless diagrams to conceptualize the database-building process. Most of us will never need to build databases from scratch so not sure if the diagrams are of any use other than troubleshoot database problems.

7. They release grades 3+ weeks after the due dates, so you never know if you are doing well (>=B-) or doing poorly (<B). You cannot make a decision whether to drop class or not without full information.

These 7 points should be enough to dissuade you from even thinking about hitting that "Register" button on OSCAR.

If you are left unpersuaded, let me reiterate: I received 7 A's and B's in OMSCS. This is the only class where I received a D.

I thought I was getting a B, but boy they don't release grades until weeks after due dates (so you never know where you are and don't have time to drop out).

Background: This was my first OMSCS class. My undergraduate degree is not in computer science and I had not taken a database class before. The syllabus and course description give an accurate view of what the class covers. If you have had an undergraduate database class this might not be a good fit for you.

Overall, I thought this was a good class. The material was interesting. The lectures were informative and useful. The TAs were very active in Piazza, often answering within minutes of a question being posted and the class was well run and organized. Weekly offices hours were held at time that was convenient for me, 7pm eastern time, but were not required and were recorded if you were not able to attend the live meeting. Because most people choose not to attend the live office hour session it was almost like having the instructor and TA available for you personally. The exams were fair and a good representation of what was covered in class. However, I did feel that the actual exams were more difficult than the practice exams that were made available.

There is a team project with all the pluses and minus that entails. I was lucky and had a good team were everybody contributed and got their work done on time. Because people can drop the class after teams are assigned, it was possible for teams to shrink or be reassigned. The project specification is clear from the beginning on what is required and expected.

I had a great experience as my first OMSCS class and feel like I learned a lot.

The worst core class for the CS track. I've taken four core classes so far.

Like all the other review have stated, this class is not hard if you have a good group. However, if your group sucks, then you are screwed. I almost drop out of this program because of this. I had to carry the whole team for phase 3 and worked very hard to finish it up. So if you are unlucky, don't pick this class.

There are a few other things I don't like about this class.

1. Structure doesn't make any sense. You are having either an exam or project phase due every two weeks. Phase 1 and phase 2 are essentially just writing project plans. Phase 1 is about 30 pages and phase 2 are writing sql. All of a sudden, right after you turn in phase 2, you have three weeks to complete phase 3, which is code a full stack frontend and backend program from scratch. Within that three weeks, you also have an exam happened at the same time. If all your team members know what to do and are not lazy, then it's fine, but in my case, my teammates are lazy and not responsive until one week before the project is due. And 2/4 team members doesn't know anything and basically freeloaded.
2. Exam is not a good way to test your understanding of the material, but more like a riddle. The practice exam is not similar to the exam level of difficulty. The exam questions are not clear and precise. All the exams are fill in the blank or choose multiple answers. And you need a mirror.
3. Team grades doesn't make any sense. They have two different grading system. one is the team evaluation, in this case, is solely based on how your teammate rate you. You have to make sure your teammate like you, otherwise you'll get a bad grade on this. This is 12% of your grade. The second grade is the project grade. Everyone gets the same grade. It doesn't matter how much work they put in. Your teammate could work 3 hours total for phase 3 and you could put in 100 hours. As long as one of the teammate give that person a good team evaluation, then they get the same grade as you. The only exception is when everyone in the group give that person a bad review. So if you don't want to put in work, then just kiss up to one other team member, then you are set. Or if two people doesn't do any work, and just give each other a good rating, then they both are set :)
4. Course materials are extremely tedious. It's not useful and applicable in real life work place at all.
5. Professor/TA doesn't really care or respect the students at all. When you have an issue present and tried to resolve it by communicate with them, they just give you the most generic answer. Also, since we are having an exam or project phase due almost every two weeks, they decide to shut down piazza for a while every few weeks, not helpful at all.

Take this class if you want to test your luck!