Big data systems are becoming an integral part of computing and data science curriculum. However, the current curriculum is largely focused on how to use the systems. An effective approach to learning the internals of big data systems is through emulation. In this paper, we report on a study where students in a graduate database course were asked to complete a course project on emulating big data systems such as Hadoop and Spark. We present the design of the emulation projects and examine the impact of the projects on students’ learning. Our key finding is that the emulation projects can greatly improve students’ self-efficacy in completing tasks that require in-depth knowledge and skills on big data systems.