Database System Implementation

Course Website

Average Workload

5.2 hrs/wk

Average Difficulty

2.0 /5

Average Overall

3.0 /5
CS-6422
Database System Implementation
Taken Summer 2025
Reviewed on 8/5/2025
Workload: 4 hr/wk
Difficulty: Very Easy
Overall: Strongly Disliked
  • This course felt like a beta course. It is not a graduate level course (I doubt if this can even be at undergrad level)! The content could have included other topics like Logging, Recovery, Transaction Management, Distributed and Cloud databases, Examples for the features described from modern databases but apparently another course is being prepared for these. If you are looking for a solid understanding of relational databases, just read the recommended book "Database System Concepts, 7th edition (https://www.db-book.com/)  and may be go through Andy Pavlo’s youtube videos instead of taking this course. 
  • As others said, too much time is given for C++ concepts in the lectures, thus depriving of chances to cover other database concepts. C++ must be made a pre-requisite instead. There is a programming assignment just to check C++ concepts, that could have been used for solidifying other database concepts instead.
  • TAs were mostly low key on Ed during the summer semester. They took many days to respond to student enquiries. I took a couple of courses before this, and TAs in this course are the least participating ones. Ed forum did not see much activity as the TAs and Professor didn’t respond to student queries within a few days in general (I would expect TAs to field most of the questions within a day or two). There was a time when all of them went completely silent for 4-5 days!
  • Lecture slides contained many mistakes from the first run of the course and were not corrected in this run too. It seems like not enough attention or effort is spent to improve the online version of this course. If you are coming to this course expecting GIOS type of rigor and discipline, you’ll be disappointed!
  • Exams and exercise sheets were not that challenging. Programming assignments don’t have much guidance via comments. However if you spend like 4-5 hrs per week, you can end up getting an A easily (assuming you have C++ knowledge). 
  • This course’s curve is the most lenient (if you scored >= 80% you get an A grade, otherwise a B) of all the courses. 90% of the students got A! If I knew this beforehand, I’d have studied even less for the exams and exercises and I would have spent more time in reading the book.