SQL Training - Exercises That Will Help You Be Successful!

If you’re starting to dip your toes in the waters of learning SQL, you’ve probably been wondering about the best places to do your SQL training. We’ve rounded up exactly where to train for SQL and how to train for SQL so you can make some informed decisions about your learning journey.

So how important is it to flex your SQL training muscles?

Well, very. To be precise.

How many marathons have you run lately without first doing at least a little training?

Did you manage to get your driver’s license without taking some lessons and practising your skills?

Did you wake up one morning fluent in Russian, or Tagalog, or Klingon without first going through the language learning ropes?

Can you shred on the Tuba without first clocking in as a Tuba trainee?

Pretty much anything worth doing requires a big dose of learning, a huge pinch of practice, and a significant chunk of your time. SQL training is no different at all.

SQL is one of those skills that doesn’t just require learning – it also requires practice. Don’t get me wrong – in the coding world SQL is one of the easiest and most enjoyable languages to learn! It’s English-based, intuitive, and common sense. But that doesn’t mean you can get away with skipping the SQL gym!

To help you on your SQL training journey, here are our Top 3 ways to train for SQL so you can cement your knowledge, build a career, and reach great SQL heights.

It’s GO time!

1. The SQL Training Course

You wouldn’t become a surgeon without first getting a few qualifications under your belt, and you shouldn’t dive into an SQL career without an SQL training course either!

To get started in the SQL world you will need to know a thing or two about databases, basic SQL queries, and all the different challenges you’ll encounter throughout your SQL career. There’s no better way to gain all this knowledge than a comprehensive SQL training course.

The SQL Basics Course offered by LearnSQL.com is a comprehensive SQL course for those just starting out on their SQL journey. If you’re ready to be less SQL noob, more SQL hero, you can move on to the SQL Practice Track, which is by far your best option for real-life SQL training, knowledge, and practice opportunities.

The SQL Practice Track is filled with exercises to increase your SQL competency, and gives you hands-on practice with a real code editor, real data sets, and real-life problems to solve. AND it features a whole heap of hints and tips, just in case you lose your way! It will help you practice SQL queries and become a master at SQL joins – among many other benefits!

Learning by doing is proven to be the most effective and efficient way of gaining and retaining knowledge, and this SQL training course is a great example of how productive hands-on experience can be.

There are actually a whole range of ways you can practice SQL with LearnSQL.com – check them out in this article.

If you’re not sure which course is for you, take a look at our SQL Basics courses – they are great places to start and will have you feeling comfortable with SQL in no time. For something fun, be sure to sign up to our monthly SQL challenges! They are sure to get your SQL training juices flowing!

2. Practice and Play

Nothing beats a bit of structure when it comes to SQL training – that’s why the SQL Practice Track is so perfect for those who have got SQL basics down pat. But if you’re looking for some ‘extra credit’ in the SQL training realm, then nothing beats playing around with SQL queries and learning as you go. You can do this in a structured way, or simply by finding free online datasets to mess around with.

Here are my Top 5 spots on the internet to practice and play:

SQL Fiddle

This is a free site that lets you play around with queries, and even save them, so you can gain confidence and learn by doing while practicing what you’ve learned in your SQL Basics course.

Simply put, SQL Fiddle is a place people head to when they want to try out queries, or link others to queries they are playing with. Often people post to community sites such as StackOverflow with links to their work on SQL Fiddle. It generates unique URLs for each database and query, which you can then paste into forums for ease of sharing.

Another great thing about SQL Fiddle as an SQL training ground is that it lets you switch database providers quickly and easily. No matter whether you’re wanting to work with MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle, or SQLite – SQL Fiddle has you covered.

On SQL Fiddle, each transaction is immediately rolled back after your SQL query is executed, ensuring the database structure is never altered between queries. The upshot of this is you can share your work anonymously online without having a bunch of different users modifying each other’s results.

If you hang out on SQL forums for long enough, you’ll soon see how many people use SQL Fiddle to train for SQL and share their work! It’s one to bookmark for sure.

Source: Kapwing.com

W3Resource

W3Resource is another fantastic free online resource for SQL training that you will no doubt get a lot of use out of!

It’s a landing page filled with resources, primarily for SQL beginners, and especially for those looking to get some hands-on practice with their SQL queries. Even if you’re something of an SQL pro now, it’s still a great place to visit, sharpen some of your skills, and see what else has been added to the site (the content is updated often thanks to the nice people behind the W3 banner.)

The number one reason to visit W3Resource is to take advantage of all the SQL training opportunities on the site, which include exercises for:

• Retrieving data from tables
• SQL Boolean and Relational operators
• SQL Wildcard and Special operators
• Aggregate Functions
• Formatting query output
• Querying on Multiple Tables
• Filtering and Sorting
• SQL Joins
• SQL Subqueries
• User Account Management

So, W3Resource Lovers unite! This resource is too good to pass up.

Source: Kapwing.com

SQLZOO

Everything’s cool, calm, and collected over at SQLZOO, where you’ll find some of the best SQL training resources on the web. This site is swinging with tests and buzzing with tutorials, helping students of SQL to get real experience writing SQL queries in a friendly and fun environment.

How fun? Well, they really are a fun bunch at SQLZOO! To give you a taster, here’s how they talk about their systems:

They have been tamed, caged and defanged so that members of the public can pet them or poke them or gawk at them. In the wild, these engines are dangerous, needy beasts but in the confines of SQLzoo they are relatively safe.

SQLZOO makes it easy to get hands-on SQL training, with each lesson offering an associated practice exercise as well as videos and explanations. It has a great reference/’how to’ section that will reaffirm your foundational SQL knowledge – ensuring you know exactly how to update, edit, and delete your databases.

SQLZOO also makes it easy to move forward with your SQL training, even when you’re struggling. If your query is failing and you don’t know why, just add “?answer+1” to the end of the URL, and the answers will show up in the appropriate boxes. It’s not cheating if it teaches you something!

Source: Kapwing.com

Oracle Live SQL

This little corner of the world is for you if you’re on Team Oracle when it comes to SQL dialects. Oracle LiveSQL offers a vast library of samples that you can play with – helping you practice your querying skills and make plenty of mistakes (the best way to learn!)

Oracle LiveSQL is great for beginners and has an easy-to-use interface that makes playing around a whole lot easier. If you create an account on the site, you’ll be able to save your queries and return to them later. Win!

Source: Kapwing.com

Testdome

The last on our list of great SQL training spots is Testdome – a great resource for practicing your SQL knowledge online. The best part of Testdome is the plethora of practice interview questions. These really quiz you on your knowledge, helping you to train for real-life interview situations, or even just to improve your abilities.

Thousands of companies actually take their interview questions directly from the Testdome site – so if you’re clued up about what’s on there, you’re probably well on your way to landing an SQL job!

Source: Kapwing.com

3. SQL Training On the Job

It can be hard to know when you’re really truly ready to go out there and practice your SQL skills in the ‘real world.’ The good news is that there’s no right time. When you get to a point in your SQL training that you feel starved of a challenge, it’s highly likely you’re ready to sink your teeth into some real-life SQL queries.

Getting SQL Training ‘on the job’ is a legit way of improving your SQL knowledge and cementing all of the basics you learned in your beginner courses.

How to find the kind of work that will take you on despite your rookie status? There are a couple of key ways you might be able to get that break you’ve been looking for.

The first is to keep an eye out for entry-level jobs or internships where SQL skills are in demand. SQL might not be the main focus of the job, but if you get to use your newfound skills even a little bit, that’s a great way of solidifying your knowledge and getting some SQL work experience on your resume.

The second way to ‘SQL train on the job’ is through sites like Upwork, HackerRank, and Guru – all of which help connect freelancers with companies and individuals who need help with SQL-related (and other) projects.

SQL isn’t a theory-based field. It’s about action, about getting things done. You can read all the SQL books you like, but getting your hands dirty is always going to trump reading. It may seem overwhelming to step into an actual SQL job when you still consider yourself a rookie – but have some faith! Even with the SQL basics under your belt you WILL be useful! This isn’t about leaping up the career ladder and becoming best in your field overnight. It’s about experience – and in the world of SQL, that’s priceless.

Source: Kapwing.com

Get on the SQL Train with Some Serious SQL Training – Today!

I’m no gym bunny, but even I know there’s truth in the saying ‘no pain, no gain.’ And just like training at a gym, building up those biceps, and flashing your guns all over town, a good dose of SQL training will help you flex your query muscles and show off your SQL gains for all to see.

If you clicked on this article to find out more about the best SQL training online then hopefully you’ll go away with a few ideas about how and where to practice your SQL basics.

Whether you’re training for knowledge, or practicing SQL for your first day of work, the sites listed above can all help you get where you’re going - whether you’re training for SQL at home or in a workplace.

If you want my advice on the best place to start, I’ll quote young Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home!”

It’s true, Dorothy, it’s true. Just kick off those ruby red slippers, hop over a page to the SQL basics course, pick up the fundamentals of this fun and important language, and then lock in those newfound skills with the LearnSQL.com Practice Track. It’s everything you need – all from the comfort of your own home.

Source: Kapwing.com