BC Skills Academy

SQL & Data Modeling Associate

Query confidently and design schemas that hold up under load

Key facts

About the SQL & Data Modeling Associate certification

An associate-level certification that turns SQL syntax into real querying and modelling judgement. You will learn to write precise SELECT statements with filtering, ordering, and limiting; aggregate with GROUP BY and HAVING; combine tables with every JOIN type (INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, FULL, SELF, CROSS); decompose problems with subqueries and CTEs; rank, offset, and accumulate with window functions (ROWNUMBER, RANK, LAG, LEAD, running totals); combine result sets with UNION, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT; and modify data safely with INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE. On the design side you will master the relational model, entity-relationship modelling (entities, attributes, relationships, cardinality), the constraints that protect integrity (primary keys, foreign keys, UNIQUE, CHECK, NOT NULL), indexes and the basics of query performance, transactions and ACID, the subtleties of NULL, normalization through 1NF/2NF/3NF/BCNF and deliberate denormalization, star versus snowflake schemas for analytics, and surrogate versus natural keys. The skills are engine-neutral — every concept maps cleanly onto PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, and Oracle — so they transfer wherever your data lives.

Course outline

The SQL & Data Modeling — Study Guide course covers:

  1. Querying with SELECT — Reading data precisely: SELECT/WHERE/ORDER BY/LIMIT, operators and NULL handling, and the logical order the database actually evaluates a query in. (3 lessons)
  2. Aggregation and Joins — Summarising data with GROUP BY/HAVING and combining tables with every JOIN type — the heart of multi-table SQL. (3 lessons)
  3. Subqueries, CTEs, Windows, and Sets — Composing advanced queries: nested and correlated subqueries, CTEs (including recursion), window functions, and set operations. (3 lessons)
  4. Relational Design and Integrity — The relational model and ER modelling, the constraints that protect data, indexes and performance, and transactions with ACID. (3 lessons)
  5. Normalization and Analytics Modeling — Normal forms 1NF-BCNF and when to denormalize, plus dimensional modelling: fact and dimension tables, star vs snowflake schemas. (3 lessons)

Prerequisites

Frequently asked questions

Is the SQL & Data Modeling Associate certificate verifiable?
Yes. Every certificate issued by BC Skills Academy carries a unique credential ID that anyone can check on the public verification page.
How is the SQL & Data Modeling Associate exam structured?
It is a timed, randomized multiple-choice exam of 50 questions in 70 minutes, graded instantly; you need 72% to pass.
Can I get a refund?
Full refund within 7 days of purchase if you have not started the exam. Once the exam has been started or completed, the purchase is no longer refundable.

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