On Teaching MySQL. Q&A with Michael Scott Brown

Q1. From your experience managing the Database System Technology Masters program and teaching at diverse institutions ranging from community colleges to Division I universities, how have you seen the role of MySQL evolve in database education over the years? 

There were two pivotal moments that really brought MySQL into colleges. The first was not a single event; it was when installation of MySQL became easier. It is hard for me to pick an exact date when this happened.  But early versions of MySQL need a considerable amount of time to install, administer and upgrade. Many faculty and departments didn’t have the resources for such installation. 

The second critical moment is when MySQL was brought into the Oracle ecosphere.  This made it easier for faculty to incorporate MySQL into the curriculum.  MySQL was running in the Oracle cloud and students could access it quickly and easily.

What makes it particularly well-suited—or perhaps challenging—for teaching fundamental database concepts to students at different levels?

The biggest fear is that something with happen during the semester and students will no longer have access to the database. As you can imagine, semesters end on a certain date, so students need access. With MySQL you do not have to worry about a license expiring.

Q2. As someone who has won two Effective Practice Awards from the Online Learning Consortium and taught over 150 course sections, what strategies have you found most effective for teaching MySQL in online learning environments? 

There are two parts to my recipe for successfully incorporating MySQL or another database into a curriculum. Early in the program there needs to be a standard database course.  This should cover basic concepts, DDL and DML.  This has been tremendously successful because of services like Oracle Academy cloud accounts. Now, students can access their MySQL database through a browser. If you have a browser, you have a MySQL database. 

The second part comes later in the program. Students will not be successful in learning databases and programming as totally disjoint concepts. Maybe the term “embedded SQL” is mentioned somewhere. A second course needs to incorporate the two by building an application that uses a database. MySQL makes that easy in many ways, one being its integration and support for multiple programming languages, like Java and Python.

 How do you create hands-on database experiences that engage adult learners remotely while ensuring they develop practical, industry-relevant skills?

Nothing will keep students more engaged then allowing them to decide what gets built.

Q3. Given your extensive industry background at companies like Sun Microsystems and your work with large government agencies, how do you bridge the gap between academic MySQL instruction and real-world enterprise database requirements?

 I like to have students build real-world applications. Who better to decide what that means  than the student themself. So, I often teach courses where students select what information system they want to build. Over the years I have seen students create all types of applications. Some students build systems very similar to ones used in industry like inventory control systems. Some want to launch a company of their own with a software idea. 

What are the most critical MySQL competencies that students often underestimate but that you’ve seen become essential in professional settings?

It would have to be transactions.  With transaction you can perform multiple updates, inserts, deletes. The transaction ensures that all of the changes will commit or rollback. This is probably the hardest concept to grasp.

Q4. With your unique perspective managing 15,000 student enrollments annually and overseeing curriculum across multiple degree programs, how do you approach curriculum design to ensure MySQL education remains relevant as database technologies rapidly evolve? How do you balance teaching MySQL fundamentals with exposure to newer database paradigms like NoSQL and cloud-native databases?

We react to the market and change the program to align with industry. This is accomplished through industry advisory boards that we invite in to analyze the program. I often take alumni surveys. I wait until students have graduated for a full year. I have two surveys that I send out. One is graduates that work in technology or have a technology degree before entering the program. A second set of questions are sent to graduates that came to us knowing nothing about technology. To these students I ask if they got their first job in the technology. I often receive response rates with virtually everyone getting that first job in industry. Having MySQL experience definitely contributed to this nearly 100% success rate. But each year we reanalyze to consider newer technologies.

Q5. Drawing from your international experience, including your Fulbright research in Poland, and your work across 12 different universities with varying student populations, how does MySQL education differ across institutional contexts and cultures? What universal principles have you discovered for making database education accessible and meaningful regardless of students’ backgrounds or prior technical experience?

Databases, like MySQL, provide an achievable path for success in the technology field and for people to ultimately change their lives.  Some occupations, like programming, can be very difficult for some people. We all think differently. The way that some people think is not well suited for programming. But learning databases is an achievable goal for most people. This ultimately gives people the tool to change their lives and the lives of their families for the better. MySQL is uniquely positioned to be the database for global education. 

Qx. Anything else you wish to add?

I can remember the days when relational databases were not taught in colleges. In fact, my first programming job was at a manufacturing company that used flat files to store data. This was in the early 1990’s. It is hard to believe that more than 20 years after E.F. Codds groundbreaking paper titled – A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks – was published organizations were still using flat files. The relational database revolution was slow, but unstoppable. There are many communities, not just products, that contributed to this. The MySQL community has played a major part in this. It is hard to imagine that MySQL was started 30 years ago.

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Michael Scott Brown, PhD (He/His/Him), Professor of Practice, Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Dr. Michael Scott Brown is a professor in the Information Systems Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Previously, he was the Graduate Program Director of the Online Masters in Information Systems and five related Graduate Certificates at UMBC.

Prior to joining UMBC, Dr. Brown was the Program Director of Computer Science at the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), formally University of Maryland University College. He managed the Software Engineering Masters, Database System Technology Masters, Computer Science Bachelors and the Computer Studies Associates degrees. This responsibility included managing over 160 faculty members, 40 courses and around 15,000 student enrollments per year.