Hi everybody and welcome to course number 2 within the specialization databases for data scientists. This is a course on SQL. SQL, the Structured Query Language. Or you can call it SQL, or you can call it SQL. It doesn't matter if they're interchangeable terms. I'll probably refer to it as SQL as I go through this class with you. I am Alan Paradise and I'm so happy to have a chance to be your instructor for this course. I've put together a few slides to go through with you at this point to just introduce you to me as your instructor and introduce you to this course on SQL. A little bit about me just so you know who I am and why I'm teaching this course, what's my background and why I think I can provide you with a little bit of training in SQL. I spent 37 years in industry working as an IT guy. Of those 37 years, I really focused a lot on database stuff. In addition to being an industry working on different kinds of software, but mostly database stuff, I spent the last 38 years as an adjunct instructor, teaching part-time college courses at various universities. But in 2017, I decided to step away from industry and just become a full-time professor. Since August of 2017, I've been teaching full-time within the Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. During my years in industry, I had a chance to work as a software developer, building a lot of different kinds of application systems. Many of those were apps that sat on top of relational databases. I had a chance to actually write a lot of code where we had embedded SQL statements in our code that communicated with an underlying database. I learn SQL way back in the 1980s and liked the database stuff. I decided to make that the technical focus of my career in IT. Some of the jobs that I've had over the years, I was a DBA group Manager at Anheuser-Busch and St. Louis, Missouri for many years. That was the most fun job that I had when I was an industry. But I left Anheuser-Busch in 2008 and went to work for Mercy, a large healthcare company located in St. Louis and was their DBA Manager. I had a team of database administrators working for me and I was responsible for all of their database. Likewise, it Anheuser-Busch, I was responsible for all of Anheuser-Busch's data within their corporate databases. At AB, I had a team of 23 DBAs working for me and at Mercy, I had a team of similar size. I think about 19 DBAs were working for me at Mercy. Then I got a job offer. These people in Colorado recruited me to move out from St. Louis to the Boulder, Colorado area and work for them. It was a small company, a startup, high-tech company with a lot of huge databases. They hired me and they relocated me from St. Louis to Colorado to be there director of database administration dealing with tons and tons of large databases. That's what my career was like. But during all that time, I was teaching part-time as an adjunct faculty member and I just loved teaching. I'd made the decision to step away from industry and just become a full-time teacher, which I've been doing for the last several years. Over the years, I had a chance to work on several different big database management software products including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and in a flavor of MySQL called MariaDB and I also worked on IBM Db2. I've had a chance to work on a lot of different kinds of relational databases, and I didn't have a chance to learn a little bit about SQL, which this course is about. Just to further explain a little bit about who I am academically, I am qualified to be your teacher because I have an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Back then in the 1980s we called it systems and data processing. I think now they call it information management. Basically it's the same stuff. Using computers to solve business problems basically. Then I went back to school and earned a master's degree in information management. Those are my academic credentials. Just a little bit about me personally. As I mentioned, I live in Colorado. I am a dad, my wife and I have been married for 43 years at the present time and we raised five kids and we have seven grandchildren and one on the way. I'm a busy husband and father and grandfather. Just in terms of my hobbies, I live out in the country up in the mountains on a farm and I enjoy farming. We raise some animals and I do a lot of mowing in the summer, but I do like living up in the mountains. I'm an amateur musician, I love to play the guitar and sing. I've been in different bands over the years, so those are my primary hobbies. I'm a handyman, I like to fix things and build things, do a little construction work on the side, I like flooring, that kind of thing. That's just a little bit about me and who I am. Now, as I begin to take you through this course number 2 within the specialization on databases, I wanted to just mention that this course has been divided into six specific modules. We're going to be talking about where SQL came from, its history and its origins. We're going to be talking about the SELECT statement. When you're doing programming in SQL, a lot of what you do is going to be SELECT statements. We're going to spend a long time learning about the SELECT statement and all the different things you can do with the SELECT statement. Then as we dig deeper into SQL, we're going to look at group functions and how you can use group functions to do SubTotals. We're going to learn about something called a Subquery, where I can embed one query inside of another query and the embedded query runs and it returns results that are used by the outer query. We're also going to talk about how we get data from multiple database tables using the SQL Join, it's a Join command within SQL. We're going to learn about DDL and DML, Data Definition Language and Data Manipulation Language. There are some other SQL statements that we learned that will fall into one or the other of those two categories. Then finally, we're going to look at some more advanced SQL commands. That's really what the next six modules of this course are going to entail. As I wrap up this little introduction, I want to plant some seeds in your mind, give you some food for thought, get you thinking about some things. I've noticed this in my years in industry and also my years as a professor at the university, students become enamored with technology because it's always changing. What was current and popular a few years ago is probably no longer current and popular. Technology changes very rapidly. I want to try to get you to think about technology, not through the eyes of a student, but rather through the eyes of an employer. If you think about an employer who's tried to run a company, trying to run a business and that employer needs to find talented people to come in and assist with technology. Think about this, what is the role of technology within that employer's organization? Why do they use technology? Where does technology fit into their big picture? In most cases, employers don't really care about the specific technology that they're using, they don't care. They're trying to run a business. Typically not all, but most employers are trying to run a business to make things and sell things and make a profit. That's what their focus is. Their organization has a mission and they're focused on their mission. What does technology mean to them? It's just a means, the technology is a means to an end of the organization fulfilling their mission and I want you to think about that. I mentioned this because so often I see students and even employees that worked for me when I was a boss at the various companies where I worked. Some folks get all enamored with technology. They think technology is cool and they want to focus on, I want to learn this cool new technology. In general, employers don't care about that. They don't care what technology is cool or not and they don't really care about how you feel about that technology. They've got a mission to fulfill, and they're going to hire people that can help them fulfill their mission. That's what makes you valuable to an employer, is can you step into an organization and use technology to help that organization fulfill their mission? I just mentioned that because the technology that you learn has to fit into a bigger picture. I want to get you thinking about why. Why are you learning technology and what benefit is that technology going to provide to an employer? Along those lines, I have a couple of quotes for you to think about. I love quotes. I like to print them out and stick them on the wall in my office because a quote can, in a few words, summarize a deep topic, which allows me to think about important things about why am I doing what I'm doing? I got a quote here from a guy named Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a philosopher and an author from the 19th century. Nietzsche says, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Why would I give you a quote from Nietzsche? It's because I wanted to get you thinking about why. Why are you studying technology? What are you going to do with it? How is it going to benefit an employer? How is it going to benefit you? Making you a better person, more well-educated. Along the same lines of thinking about your why, I've got some quotes from a guy named Simon Sinek. You can see at the bottom of the slide Number 6, I've got a link that I would urge you to go click on that link and watch a Simon Sinek video. His video challenges you to think about why. Why are you doing what you're doing? As you embark on this new course, it's important for you to understand why are you taking this course? Why? What's it going to do for your career? You need to know that. It's foolish to go off on a journey if you don't know your destination. It's silly to take a course in school if you don't know why you're taking it. That's just a challenge. Take a look at these quotes from Simon Sinek. "You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills." Maybe that's saying that, yeah, it's good for you to learn skills, which is why you're here, but what's even more important is your attitude. "Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them." Food for thought. "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. What you do simply proves what you believe." If you've got a handle on why you're doing what you're doing, people see that and they will look to you to find inspiration because you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, and in that you can become a leader. Finally, I'll just summarize by saying a little bit about why I'm here. The reason why I love teaching is because I've found that by teaching, I can make a difference in the lives of other people. That's why I'm here. That's why I teach these classes. Is because I want to be able to give something back to my students. I got a great career and learned a lot and it's been a fun, long run, but now it's my time to give something back. That's my why. That's why I'm here is because I want to give something back to my students and make a difference in your life and help you along your path in life. In the meantime, I can teach you some useful skills that will help you. It helps you learn about technology and the stuff we're learning in this class, SQL, it's a very marketable skill and I hope that someday it will help you in your decision to pursue different opportunities in employment. With that, I will leave you with one more question, which is, why are you here? I want you to think about that and you should form an answer for that. You don't have to tell me, but you should know it and always be aware of the why behind what you're doing so that you can do it to your very best. Thanks a lot and let's close this section and we'll move on to the next module in just a bit. Thank you.
