CST363 - Week 23

What is a data warehouse and why is it important?

A data warehouse is a place where information is stored in a way that will be useful to business managers. The information is extracted, transformed, and loaded (ETL) from the main database and put into a star schema with a fact table and dimension tables. With these tables, it is easy for businesses to use the data to make decisions for the company.

Briefly name and describe 3 things that you learned in this course that you think will be important in your future career.

1. The first thing I learned is simply what a database is, how to create and modify data and tables, and how to select specific data. I think it is extremely important to understand how a database works and stores information and will most definitely be useful in my future career.

2. I learned something important from the videos and readings about OLAP, online analytical processing. As a database manager, or even as a computer engineer writing code for an application, it is crucial to keep in mind that while you are focusing on the coding and technical end, you must also focus on the user and make your application intuitive, useful, and easy to navigate.

3. The third thing that I gained from this course was working on projects as a team. My team is amazing and everyone supports each other and works well together. In this class, we decided to share our code using Github, which made collaborating seamless. As a beginner in the computer science world, I had never used git before, so I am happy that I was able to become familiar with it now, as I am sure I will use it in the future. As the professor relayed in an email, it is an essential skill for a CS graduate.