5 Reasons Every Aspiring Data Scientist Must Learn SQL

With massive data currently available, businesses and industries are collecting and churning
out billions of data every day. The big data phenomenon requires proper skillset to be able to
make meaning out of it - be it in the medical field, education, business, sports etc. These
enterprises must be able to not only collect and store data, but also analyze it to make
strategic and informed decisions that can increase their profitability and solve real life
problems. Imagine being able to use big data to design a model that will ease traffic and
make transport in major cities easy and convenient. This and many more can be done and one
of the skills needed by a data scientist is SQL. So what is SQL?

What is SQL?

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a standard database language which is used to create,
maintain and retrieve relational databases. Started in 1970s, SQL has become a very
important tool in a data scientist’s tool box since it is critical in accessing, updating,
inserting, manipulating and modifying data. It helps in communicating with relational
databases to be able to understand the dataset and use it appropriately.

Here are five reasons why aspiring data scientist needs to learn SQL for them to succeed in
their data science career.

1. Easy to Learn and Use

Unlike other programming languages that require high level conceptual understanding and
memorization of the steps needed to perform a task, SQL is applauded for its simplicity by the
use declarative statements. It uses simple language structure with English words that are easy
to understand compared to memorizing strings of numbers and letters in other languages. If
you are new to programming and data science, SQL is the best language to start with. A short
syntax, allows you query data and get insights from it. As an aspiring data scientist, you need
to learn SQL since it is easy to master. SQL is at the very foundation of data science.

For you to progress steadily and with good mastery of the field, you need to start your data
science career journey with a simple yet powerful language like SQL. It is very easy to learn
the basics of SQL and use them to query and manipulate your data. In addition to that, there
are SQL-based Business Intelligence (BI) tools that are very handy and can easily be used by a
data scientist. SQL will also provide you with the basic knowledge that can help you delve
into other programming languages while also preparing you to understand NoSQL databases.

2. Understanding your Dataset

As a data scientist, the first thing you want to know is an in depth understanding of the
dataset you are working with. Learning SQL will give you a solid understanding of relational
databases and hence enable you master the foundations of data science.

SQL will help you to sufficiently investigate your dataset, visualize it, identify the structure
and get to know how your dataset actually looks like. It will enable you to find out if there
are any missing values, identify outliers, NULLS and the format of your dataset. Through
slicing, filtering, aggregations and sorting, SQL will allow you to play around with your
dataset, be thoroughly familiar with it, and know how the values are distributed and how the
dataset is organized. As a scalpel is on the hand of a surgeon, so is SQL on the hand of a data
scientist for it is irrefutably useful in ‘incising’ through the dataset for detailed
understanding.

3. Integrates with Scripting Languages

In as much as SQL is powerful in data access, querying and manipulation, it is limited in some
aspects like visualization. As a data scientist, you will need to meticulously present your data
in a way that is easily understood by your team or organization. SQL integrates well with
other scripting languages like R and Python. You can easily integrate SQL and Python to be
able to do your work comfortably by incorporating your code package as a stored procedure.

Also, specialized connection libraries for SQL like SQLite and MySQLdb can be very useful in
connecting a client app to your database engine thereby giving you an opportunity to work
with your dataset.

4. Manage huge volumes of data

Data science in most cases involves dealing with huge volumes of data stored in relational
databases. Working with such volumes of data needs high level solution to manage it other
than the usual spreadsheets. As the volumes of datasets increases, it become untenable to
use spreadsheets. The best solution for dealing with huge datasets is SQL. SQL has the
capacity to manage such datasets.

With SQL, you do not have to worry when dealing with pools of data in relational databases. It
can communicate, query and provide useful insights from the data.

5. A Gateway to Data Science Jobs

For most data science jobs, proficiency in SQL ranks higher that the other programming
languages. Data science involves dealing with large datasets in databases and it will require
expertise in SQL to be able to solve the problems in your project. Programming in SQL is
highly marketable as far as data science is concerned. The ability to store, update, access
control and manipulate datasets is a great skill for every data scientist. SQL will therefore
provide you with this ability that will make you sought-after and useful in organizations that
need data scientists.

Furthermore, SQL integrates with many database management systems like MySQL, Microsoft
SQL Server, Oracle Database, dBase among others that allows one to dynamically build SQL
statements for projects. This integration also makes it possible to switch between the
systems. SQL in used in most industries such as computer software, health, manufacturing,
transport, banking, etc. In short, SQL is there to stay and mastering it will be an advantage
for an aspiring data scientist.

In conclusion, as a free open-source programming language, SQL is at the very foundation of

data science. Communication with relational databases will be easier when you learn SQL. I
would recommend that any aspiring data scientist should learn SQL because it is easy to
learn, helps in deep understanding of datasets, integrates easily with scripting languages,
manages huge datasets and its indeed a gateway to lucrative data science jobs. So, before
you begin learning other programming languages for data science, why don’t you begin with
SQL and have a cool entry into data science.