FAQ

Q1: Will this class be taught in person or online?

The Fall 2025 offering of this course will be taught at Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus. The lectures will be taught in person and all students are expected to attend unless there is extenuating circumstances.

Q2: How can I get off the wait list?

Please do not contact the instructors, TAs, nor admins about whether you have a chance of enrolling into the course.

You will be contacted if you are enrolled in the class. Our capacity in the course is limited to the number of TAs that we have and the room size. We will move students off of the wait list as new seats become available. Preferential consideration is given to SCS students. Switching between sections will not improve your chances of getting into the class. Unless this course is required for your program, the fact that it is your last semester will not make a difference on whether you can enroll.

Q3: Will the lectures be recorded? Will the videos also be available on YouTube for non-CMU students?

Yes, we will record the lectures and make them available to CMU students. Our plan is to make the videos available to both CMU and non-CMU students on the CMU-DB YouTube Channel immediately after class

Q4: Does this course have recitations?

No, there are no scheduled recitations. There are only lectures and additional help sessions for the projects during semester.

Q5: Do I need to know C++ for this course?

Yes, you should be familiar with programming and debugging in C++. All the course projects are on the BusTub system written in C++20. There will be a mandatory project to evaluate your C++ proficiency at the beginning of the semester. We will not teach you C++ during the semester. If you are unsure about your C++ programming skills, then please prepare accordingly. You can also to refer to our C++ Bootcamp for additional materials.

Q6: Will this course be taught in the Spring semester?

Yes! Intro to Database Systems (15-445/645) will be taught every semester. The companion Advanced Database Systems (15-721) course will also be taught most semesters going forward. See the CMU-DB Course page for additional information.

Q7: How can people not enrolled in the class test their projects?

All of the source code for the projects are available on Github. There is a Gradescope submission site available to non-CMU students:
  • Entry Code: 5R4XPZ
  • School: Carnegie Mellon University
We will make the auto-grader for each assignment available to non-CMU students on Gradescope after their due date for CMU students. In exchange for making this available to the public, we ask that you do not make your project implementations public on Github or other source code repositories.

Q8: Where can I go to discuss the course material or projects?

If you are a CMU student during the semester, then post your questions to the Piazza message board. If you are not a CMU student, there is an Discord channel to meet other students. Note: This Discord channel is not affiliated with CMU and will not be monitored by instructors or TAs.

⚠ Do not post questions about the project as GitHub issues.

Q9: How do I become a teaching assistant (TA) for 15-445/645?

We only hire CMU students as TAs for this course if you satisfy at least one of the following criteria:
  1. You already completed 15-445/645 in a previous semester. If you have a high ranking score in the project leaderboards, we will reach out to you to see if you want to TA next semester.
  2. You are a freak-of-nature with substantial DBMS internals development experience before arriving at CMU. The instructor makes the final decision on whether your background is sufficient (Spoiler: You probably do not have this).
⚠ MS Students: Given the complexity of the project codebase and the unique nature of this course, the database course you took as an undergrad before coming to CMU is likely not enough to prepare you to be a 15-445/645 TA.

Q10: Is it a good idea to start a family while taking this course?

No, we strongly advise that every student who is serious about pursuing a database-centric lifestyle refrain from acquiring, obtaining, or receiving a baby during the semester. Children are a crushing obligation that requires at least 30 hours of your time per week, which could have been spent learning about and working on database systems instead.

Q11: This course helped me prepare for interviews and now I am making more money with my new job! How can I show my gratitude to you?

Congratulations! We love to hear about people getting jobs because of CMU-DB courses. Feel free to send us an email even if you are not a CMU student.

⚠ If you would like to give back to our research and education efforts to help the next generation of database students, please consider donating to the CMU-DB Database Research Endowed Fellowship. If you have other ideas on how you would like to sponsor our research group, please email the instructors. Word is bond.