DMBI Course Impressions
I have a Graduate Certificate in Database Management and Business Intelligence from Boston University, 2016. I started this program in Fall#1 2015 and took one class per semester. This is a 16 credits certificate at a graduate level and makes the core curriculum and the concentration requirements for Master of Science in Computer Information Systems. I have put a lot of time and a lot of work into this and if anyone wants to try it, brace yourself to keep on going and surround yourself with people that give you support and motivate you along the way. All classes end with a project of some kind, a Project and a Presentation and of course, with a final exam. Here is some reflection on the classes of this program:
MET CS 669 Database Design and Implementation for Business
Fall#1 2015
Grade: A-
Impression: This class is the starting point and the entry for this program. You will learn SQL, PL/SQL , data modeling, data administration, performance tuning and query optimization and also some basic concepts of DDBMS (Distributive Database Management Systems). You have to be willing to put a lot of time and effort in order to succeed. The class ends after seven weeks with a project (written research paper and the implementation code: DCL, DDL and DML). The project is to be done in Oracle or MSSQL Server (you are asked to pick one at the beginning of the class). You are also asked to pick one of the two available project topics (standard or healthcare). I picked Oracle XE and healthcare topic. There are lots of assignments, assessments (quizzes) weekly, and on top of this, you are expected to upload a project iteration each and every week, and there is of course, the final exam too. However, it was a great experience and I learned a lot from it.
My Term Project: Multi-Specialty Ambulatory Health Center (design and implementation in Oracle XE)
MET CS 674 Database Security
Spring#2 2016
Grade: A-
Impression: This class provides an .ova file (Oracle 11g under Linux) that you have to import in Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager and work off of. This gave me some security concepts that helped me with the next class (Advanced Database Management). The class ends with a research paper about an advanced Database Security concept and you can pick your topic and present it for approval. Discussions about different security concepts are graded and taking place each week and you can learn a lot through research or from your peers who already work in the field of security. It is an interesting class and the virtual machine is a great and easy option to get you started without having to install any software on your personal machine (except for the Oracle VM VirtualBox). The final exam was harsh, but I did OK overall.
My Term Project: SQL Injection (with examples demonstrated in our VM virtual machine laboratory environment)
MET CS 779 Advanced Database Management
Summer#2 2016
Grade: B+
Impression: This class was challenging for me. The advanced concept seemed a little too advanced for me at the moment :-) and I barely slept during these seven weeks. HUGE amount of work, especially in the first weeks, lots of PL/SQL code, no time to read because of the never ending assignments and assessments. You dive in right from the start into advanced database concepts, lots of procedures, triggers, functions to do for your homework, ERDs (Entity Relationship Diagrams), all kids of "goodies". This class is a continuation of CS 669 at a higher level. The class ends with a Project and a Presentation on an advanced database topic we have to come up with, project iterations have to be submitted every week along with all other assignments and assessments, and of course with the final exam.
My Term Project: Massively Parallel Processing Data Warehouse
This project also includes a Project Presentation with a sample flow and a short demonstration of ETL (Extract Transform and Load) process using the open source Pivotal Greenplum Sandbox virtual machine for Oracle VM VirtualBox from Pivotal Network.
MET CS 699 Data Mining
Fall#2 2016
Grade: A-
Impression: This class delved into mathematical data mining theory right from the beginning. Similar with MET CS 674, this class provides an .ova file (Oracle 11g under Linux) that you have to download and import in Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager. You will get some hands-on experience with Oracle mining and Weka tools. I really enjoyed this class a lot with all the challenges along the way. It is a lot of math at an advanced level, so a strong math background is very helpful. We learned a lot about classification, decision trees, association rules, and clustering. Assignments and discussions are taking place each week. The course ends with a data mining project using a large data set taken from real-world projects. Algorithms will be tested on the data set using the Weka Data mining software. The time allotted for the final was 3 hours and I barely finished it on time. I didn't find it difficult at all, but it is time consuming, so you have to think fast and be organized to finish everything in the time allotted.
My Term Project: Building and testing a classifier model using a real world data.
The data was downloaded from UCI Machine Learning Lab and slightly modified for the course project. The data mining models were created and tested in a laboratory environment using Weka, an open source data mining tool.