Seek a partner on Discord, don't just join a group

Submitted Mon Dec 09 2024

I would recommend reaching out to the professor in OH early to have him review your schema. This is a great course, but unfortunately the feedback on your project progress is outsourced to the other students in the course. This means that you will need to attend OH if you want a TA or the professor to give you real feedback on your class project.

Submitted Wed Jan 31 2024

The quality of the course materials and responsiveness of the instruction team is pretty good, easily one of my favorite classes in its mix of theory and practical application. What really makes or breaks your experience of the class is who you choose for your partner. I cannot stress this more, as there is almost nothing you can do to change partners (you can exchange with another consenting group, but who would agree?). I did more than 95% of the project and associated reports on my own, so this class took way more time than expected. Otherwise, it's an informative and even fun class because you can pick any topic for your database. There are a lot of nitty-gritty details to look out for when it comes to the group project and its reports. Be sure to check and double check the rubric. It is very fair in its grading as long as you pay attention to detail.

Submitted Tue Jan 30 2024

You won't need any SQL training before class, and I feel like this class does a pretty solid job in teaching the concepts. I didn't really need to use outside resources to get familiar with it. We ended up using Flask (Jinja templates) with Javascript, and was fine. The course goes over how to create your website using frameworks like Flask and Node. I had very limited recollection of Javascript learned in web dev (290) but was able to get by just based on the lecture and walkthrough videos.

Submitted Mon Jan 08 2024

Course materials provide everything you need to get a good grade, but I'd spend some time brushing up on web dev especially if your only exposure to it is from 290. More importantly, make sure the topic you choose for the project is something you're interested in. I compromised a lot in the beginning thinking that if my partner was excited about the topic, they'd be more likely to contribute. I ended up completing the last steps of the project (i.e. the bulk of it) by myself. If your partner is not open to meeting you halfway from the start, ask to switch groups while it's still feasible.

Submitted Thu Dec 21 2023

Enjoy how great of an instructor Dr. Curry is. :)

Submitted Sun Oct 01 2023

This class is pretty easy if you learned/remembered topics from 290. SQL is very intuitive, so it's not really that much to learn. The class kind of stops teaching you anything toward then end and you're just finishing up your project. If you really want to learn about databases and database design, make sure to read the textbook chapters. For the project, as others have said, get a good partner. Unless you really want to reinforce web dev skills, you can make the project extremely minimal (like 0 lines of CSS minimal) and get an A. That said, it's a great opportunity to make something portfolio-worthy, so don't squander the opportunity if you can afford the time. Most of the grades in the class are very tedious documentation and review steps. Don't expect to get much feedback from anyone except from other students who are reviewing your work. Unfortunately, that feedback is often low-quality or completely incorrect. However, it is very easy to get an A if you just make sure you're meeting the requirements in the rubric.

Submitted Tue Aug 22 2023

This course works on one database project for the entire quarter. I think it is beneficial to take this course right after taking CS 290. It wasn't too difficult and reinforced topics from CS 290. The most difficult part is building the front end in NodeJS or with Flask, but they provide a really good starter code that actually explains what everything does. That was perfect for me, because I struggled with that during CS 290. I liked Professor Curry's videos a lot too. I think he explained everything really well and never needed to go to office hours. The project is also a group project.

Submitted Tue Aug 22 2023

Like all classes, start early. However, you are provided with a lot of skeleton code for this course. It almost feels like a copy/paste course. As long as you work on the content without missing deadlines you should be fine. Just be cautious of the extremely anal portfolio rubric. Additionally, hope to find a good project partner!

Submitted Thu Jun 08 2023

Really interesting class, but it does have a lot of busy work. It is definitely doable to take this class with a hard one like 261, 325, and 374. Just plan ahead. My partner and I were basically done after week 5 which really helped with finals in the other classes. Both instructors are super helpful and active on Teams.

Submitted Tue Jun 06 2023