10 Free Courses to learn Database and SQL for Programmers and Data Scientists
Tags: Data Science, Sql, Programming, MySQL, Database

10 Free Courses to learn Database and SQL for Programmers and Data Scientists

Free courses learn SQL and Database concepts for beginners using Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL from edX, Udemy, and Coursera.

Hello guys, I have been sharing some free programming resources like books and courses in this blog for quite some time. Earlier I have shared free courses on Java, Maven, Spring, and Data Structure and Algorithms and today I’ll share some of the free online training courses to learn SQL and Database.

Why you should learn SQL? Well, it’s one of the must-have skills for programmers, application developers, and IT professionals. Like Linux, this is one skill that is going to serve you longer than any other programming language, framework, or library.



SQL is used to interact with Database Systems like Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server. As per ANSI (American National Standards Institute), SQL stands for the Standard Query language for Relational Database Management Systems.



SQL is one of the important programming languages to interact with various Database Systems for many decades. While many languages that existed two decades ago are extinct now, SQL has always maintained its supremacy in the RDBMS world. Over time, it has only advanced with new features and standards. And it seems to stay that way for years to come.



Most of the real-world applications use relational data in one way or another and SQL is the query language to work with those data. IT allows you to query data to find what you are interested in.

SQL helps you to understand the data, an important part of your application as well as during troubleshooting.

For example, if you are working for an e-commerce giant like Amazon then you can pull out the best selling items by writing an SQL query. Good knowledge of SQL needs to effectively do your job.

10 Free Courses to Learn SQL and Database using Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server

In this article, I’ll share courses that will help you to learn the basics of SQL and Database. You will learn how to write SQL queries, both basic and advanced like using joins and aggregate functions, etc. I have also included a course on Oracle and SQL Server, two of the most popular database of the modern world which enhance SQL with some proprietary features.

1. Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying (Udemy best course)

This is an introductory Udemy online course on Databases and SQL Querying. There are no pre-requisites for this course. If you are looking to get acquainted with the concept of Databases and Queries for maybe your next interview as an analyst, this is the right course for you.



In this course, you will learn about writing simple queries including queries related to Dates, String manipulation, Aggregation, etc. The advanced concepts like joining multiple tables are not covered but you get a good idea of SQL to explore further yourself.



In short, a good SQL course for beginners with absolutely no experience in database or programming. Apart from DBA and Application developers, BA, QA, and other people who want to learn SQL can use this course.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE — Introduction to Databases and SQL Querying

2. SQL for Data Science (Coursera Best course to Learn SQL)

SQL is one of the most important skill for Data Scientist, probably more important than any programmer because they have to deal with Data for than anyone else.

While Pandas is great and Microsoft Excel is also a useful tool for any Data Scientist, there is no substitute for SQL and if you are serious about learning SQL from best of the best then this free SQL course from Coursera is the best way to start with.

In this free SQL course, offered by UCDavis and Coursera, SAdle St Lawrence will teach you SQL from scratch.

The purpose of this course is to introduce relational database concepts and help you learn and apply foundational knowledge of the SQL language. It is also intended to get you started with performing SQL access in a data science environment.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE —SQL for Data Science

And, if you find Coursera courses useful, which they are because they are created by reputed companies like Google, IBM, Amazon, and best universities around the world, I suggest you join the Coursera Plus, a subscription plan from Coursera

This single subscription gives you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects. It cost around $399/year but its complete worth of your money as you get unlimited certificates.

This is another gree course to learn SQL basics from Udemy, particularly how to write SQL queries on Microsoft SQL Server. The author, who is a Data Analyst and SQL Developer from Australia have done a good job of explaining tricky concepts like joins to the beginners.



In this course, you will not only learn about SQL joins but also how to write aggregation based queries and how to do backups and restores. The course uses SQLServer 2014 express and all the scripts which are used of course are also available for download to make your learning better.



In short, good SQL overview courses for students and programmers starting the first time with SQL and Database.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE —SQL: The Hitch Hikers Guide To Writing SQL Queries

If you have worked with the database in real-world projects then you know that every vendor is different. Each vendor provides some additional functionalities or operator to SQL running on their system. That’s SQL query which runs on Oracle might not run on Microsoft SQL or MySQL, unless you are using ANSI SQL.

Oracle SQL is a little bit different than ANSI SQL and used for Oracle RDBMS, one of the leading relational databases in the world

This is a beginner level course and even if you are starting with SQL and database first time, you can join this course. If you are thinking to learn SQL for the Oracle database then this is the right course for you.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE — Oracle SQL: An Introduction to the most popular database

Along with Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server is another popular relational database and it has its own SQL dialects T-SQL. It provides some useful functions and operators to standard SQL.



If you want to learn SQL in Microsoft SQL Server then this is the right course for you. In this free online training course from edX, you will learn how to install SQL Server Express for free, thanks to edX Team



You will also learn how to create tables and add data to tables. Once you have your database ready you can start practicing SQL queries. This makes this course ideal for beginner DBAs as well for programmers and application developers who use MSSQL.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE — Querying Data with Transact-SQL

FreeCodeCamp Youtube channel also has a nice SQL and Database course to learn this important skill. In this course, Mike Dane will teach you database management basics and SQL.

In this course, Mike will help you install MySQL on Windows or Mac. Then he explores topics like schema design, Create-Read-Update-Delete operations (CRUD), and other database fundamentals.

If you’ve never studied databases or SQL before, this is a great starting point as the course covers thinks like What is Database, What is SQL, Creating Tables and Inserting data, etc. You can watch the full course on Youtube.

This is another free course to learn SQL and Database from Coursera. This course is offered by the University of Michigan and relieved by Charles Russel Severance, one of the top instructors on Coursera.

This course is also part of the Web Applications for Everybody Specialization, and completing this course will count towards that certification.

In this course, you will learn about how to perform CRUD operation (Create, Read, Update, Delete,) but also learn some advanced SQL query techniques like SQL JOINS and Stored procedures.

You’ll also learn about single table queries and the basic syntax of the SQL language, as well as database design with multiple tables, foreign keys, and the JOIN operation. Lastly, you’ll learn to model many-to-many relationships like those needed to represent users, roles, and courses.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE —Introduction to Structured Query Language (SQL)

This course is an advanced T-SQL Querying course for programmers who have basic Ideas of SQL and Microsoft SQL Server.



It expects that you are already aware of basic database concepts and are comfortable writing basic T-SQL queries like SELECT, JOINS, etc. This course covers advanced topics like views, triggers, dynamic queries, pivots, etc.



If you looking for your next database job or trying to improve your existing SQL Server and T-SQL knowledge and apply it in your projects, this is the right course for you.

Here is the link to sign up for FREE — Advanced Databases and SQL Querying

If you want to learn SQL using the PostgreSQL database then you will love this free course from freeCodeCamp.

In this 4 and a half online SQL training course, you will learn how to use PostgreSQL in this full course. PostgreSQL is a general-purpose and object-relational database management system. It is the most advanced open-source database system widely used to build back-end systems.

You can watch this course for free on Youtube on freeCodecamp channel on here itself, here is the link: