An interview with Lorraine Li, creator of “Database Fundamentals”

Below is an interview with Lorraine Li, Next Tech’s data scientist and creator of the Database Fundamentals course!

So I know we already know each other pretty well, but mind telling others a bit about yourself?

Sure! My name is Lorraine. I was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Australia before heading to the U.S. for school.

I came out to San Francisco area after I graduated and started working as a data analyst. As I learned more about the field I realized I really enjoyed working with data, so I decided to pursue it more seriously. That’s why I joined Next Tech, where I’m now working as a data scientist.

And yes, I miss the Aussie sun…

Yeah, we get plenty of sun here, but nothing like Australia. Anyway, tell me about your course!

My course is called “Database Fundamentals”. It’s designed to take a learner from 0 to 60 on databases by covering all the essentials like modifying databases, manipulating data, and querying data.

It’s broken down into multiple lessons, each focusing on a particular area. So for example, the “Columns” lesson covers how to create, modify, and delete columns, but also data types and normalization. So a little of everything.

Why did you decide to build a course about databases?

A lot of the courses out there for learning about databases focus a lot on querying data. My goal with this course is to introduce users to databases as a whole. We do get into querying in the later lessons, but first we build up a foundational knowledge around databases in general.

What made you get into data science in the first place?

While working as a data analyst I came across the data science field― I think someone just mentioned it in passing. It sounded fun, so I started poking around a bit. I ended up taking an online bootcamp and some Coursera courses and just kept digging deeper. I really enjoy being challenged and learning data science satisfies that!

Have you found yourself using databases a lot as part of your job?

Yes, absolutely. Databases by themselves aren’t technically “data science”, but knowing how they work is really important to succeed as a data scientist. I use one every day.

Any ideas for future courses you might build?

We just added Jupyter Notebook support to the Next Tech platform, so probably something using those. If you have any requests, just let me know!

You can find Lorraine’s Database Fundamentals course here. And she did end up doing another one already, so if you fancy learning about linear regressions with Python, check this out!