In a scenario where I have a table of students all applying for a job and I want to record where they have applied would it be better practise to create a separate table for each student with their individual applications in or create a separate big table that just links an application to a student?
Answer
When you say database do you mean table?
Each noun should map to an entity, which in most cases would be represented by a single table so:
STUDENTS-<APPLICATIONS>-JOBS
A student can make many applications An application is made by a single student
An application relates to a single job One job could have many applications.
Students -------- STUDENT_ID NAME ... Applications ------------ APPLICATION_ID JOB_ID STUDENT_ID APPLICATION_DATE ... Jobs ---- JOB_ID TITLE SALARY ...
add more columns as required!