Taking Data Management Systems course w/o a background in Java or 'Data Structures'?

[techgirl87]

Hi, I have a complicated situation. I am signed up for a CS420 course (Data Management Systems) this summer, although I haven't completed 2 of the "prerequisites" for the course which are a 100-level Java course and a 300-level 'Data Structures' course.

 

I am taking the course at a small, 'lower'-level public university so I am assuming the expectations won't be as rigorous as what might be found at a more competitive school.

The syllabus can be found here:

http://www.wou.edu/~liuj/CS420/hando...Summer2010.doc

 

For those of you who have EXPERIENCE in computer science and have dealt with these basic fields, can you tell me whether it is a really bad idea to go into this course without a background in Java or Data Structures? Or is this something that can be managed provided I study really hard, and do all the readings and assignments to the best of my ability? I am willing to work VERY hard.

 

You can look at the syllabus I linked above more carefully to get a better idea of the course and what we'll be learning... here's the first part of the course description:

 

"This course studies the basic concepts of relational database from data modeling (entity-relationship model), database design, database implementation, information maintenance, and retrieving through SQL. The course also covers relational algebra, normalization, and the process of building a database application. Other topics discussed in the course include the history of data processing, database management systems tools and their vendors, and trends in the area of data processing."

 

PLEASE LET ME KNOW ASAP!!! THIS IS REALLY REALLY URGENT!!!

(Also, please don't try to reason with me about the order I take the courses, it's a complicated situation of class availability and graduation dates, etc. I just want your opinion on whether this can be done or not. Thank you!)

[padren]

I got a 404 error trying to pull the doc, your link includes the '...' in the URL itself so it breaks.

 

I did find the doc on the site though. I can't speak to a Uni course on this but I have worked with building and maintaining relational databases for about 15 years or so professionally, and I don't think you have too much to worry about as far as requisites go.

 

This course looks like it will involve mostly SQL syntax and the various strategies used to design relational database structures - not the low level design of data access structures for software design.

I'd be willing to bet this uses existing RDB software solutions to create tables, stored procedures, indexes, foreign key relationships and the like that are all interacted with via SQL.

You may need to handle some complex math depending on the course, but for the most part it's about logically attacking data modeling scenarios and creating clean, efficient structures and understanding the trade-offs in efficiency. They may go into clustered scenarios or maybe some advanced keyword indexing algorithms but I doubt it.

 

As far as SQL goes it's a pretty straight forward query language, far more procedural than anything you'll do in Java. It's really just a way to describe data you want to look at or change within a database (with some syntax database-alteration/creation) and the complexity really comes from the strategy on how to model and then look up the data, not the language itself.

 

 

Out of curiosity - what experience do you have in programming? They may want you do know some java and data structures because they use java to interface with databases. If that's the case it would be important to know, because even though it's not directly related, it'll be a weak link in the process between what you learn and how you execute your results.