Good afternoon/evening/morning,

I am designing a new database, for scholarship awards for students. I have come up with some tables and relationships that are "circular" relationships. I've run into a similar situation before - is this necessarily bad? (I ran into trouble, before w/Stonefield Query - but this latest version does a much better job with the relationships). I'd like general opinions on if this is a poor design.


Students apply, in the summer for awards for the academic year. I have something like the following tables:

StudentYear: iPKStudentYear, iFKStudentID, iyear
AwardsAppliedFor: iPKAwardsAppliedFor, iFKStudentYear, iFKAward, lApproved
Awards: iPKAward, cDescription, iAmount, etc.


The award checks come in by period (semester/quarter). I have the following tables for actual awards:

StudentPeriod: iPKStudentPeriod, iFKStudentYear, iFKAcademicPeriod, iFKAward
AcademicPeriod: iPKAcademicPeriod, ...describes period ...
Awards: ...as above...


SO, both AwardsAppliedFor and StudentPeriod are related to StudentYear, and both of those tables are related directly or indirectly to Awards.

I don't see any other way to approach this...comments/suggestions? TIA, J