Relational Database Journey

Begin with spreadsheet pain, then climb step by step to clean, disciplined relational design.

Session Navigator

Week 1 — Foundations

Sessions 1–3: from spreadsheet pain to relational thinking.

Session 1
Why Databases Exist

Feel the pain of Excel before you ever hear the word "relational".

Focus: motivation & story Ready
Session 2
What a Database Really Is

Move from pain to understanding: databases as models of reality, not just boxes of data.

Focus: entities & identity Ready
Session 3
Relationships, Blueprints & The Victory of RDBMS

How entities connect, ERDs as blueprints, and why the world runs on relational databases.

Focus: relationships & rules Ready

Week 2 — Deeper Practice

Sessions 4–8: applying relational ideas more rigorously.

Session 4
ERD Is Not the Database

Connect the ERD story from earlier sessions to a concrete, navigable deck.

Focus: ERD vs actual schema Ready
Session 5
Keys Deep Dive

Candidate, surrogate and foreign keys — the point where most students break.

Focus: keys & constraints Ready
Session 6
Many-to-Many Is a Lie

Turn conceptual many-to-many relationships into real tables using junction entities.

Focus: junction tables & M:N Ready
Session 7
Normalization (Without Scaring Them)

1NF, 2NF, 3NF as story-driven rules to prevent data pain, not as scary math.

Focus: 1NF–3NF & anomalies Ready
Session 8
Reality Check & Discipline

Spot schema smells, avoid SQL lies, and build a simple checklist for real-world discipline.

Focus: anti-patterns & review Ready