Date:         Wed, 6 Feb 2002 08:29:13 -0000
Reply-To:     Roland <roland.rashleigh-berry@VIRGIN.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Roland <roland.rashleigh-berry@VIRGIN.NET>
Organization: Virgin Net Usenet Service
Subject:      Re: Introduction to SAS

I learnt my SAS off a former employee of the SAS Institute who had gone into
consultancy and was working in my team when I joined it. I was a Cobol and
MBasic programmer before that. Learning the subject off somebody who is very
competent and having a thorough grounding in programming as preparation
helps enormously.

I wish I could remember the guy's name.

He got us into a spot of trouble once - a run-in with the law, drinking beer
on the opposite side of the road to the "Sun" on Lamb's Conduit Street.

What was his name, now?

I suppose it would be a bit embarrasing if I suddenly remembered it....



Jim Tomason - got it !!


"Charles Patridge" <Charles_S_Patridge@PRODIGY.NET> wrote in message
news:200202051902.g15J2La02967@listserv.cc.uga.edu...
> Maybe a few other SAS Consultants can offer some advice to Richard as to
> how and where you learned SAS.
>
>
> Introduction to SAS
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> First, I would say many of the current SAS consultants learned SAS while
> being employed fulltime as employees of former employers before going into
> Consulting, including myself.
>
> Second, some may have learned SAS while in college or graduate school.
>
> And finally, once a SAS consultant, a number of them would do some of the
> following:  buy manuals and learn new enhancements/features from them,
> attend SAS classes when available, attend local/regional/national SAS user
> group meetings for presentations/handouts that are offered.
>
> Subscribe and actively glib information from SAS-L.
>
> And lastly, there are a couple of Online SAS Training programs or
Tutorials
> (including SAS Institute's very own web site) which can be found but I
> caution you as to the money you may spend on such classes as being money
> NOT well spent for the MOST part.
>
> I would say the most effective manner in learning SAS is getting access to
> the SAS software for your own personal use, get a set of manuals (even
> version 6 manuals are still worth having), and building sample
> applications, tools or reports with your own data or needs.
>
> For instance, I use SAS to do a number of tasks on my PC to help with
> administrative type tasks I have at home such as simple accounting, simple
> reporting, my Christmas Mailing to over 200 people, generate labels,
> letters, etc for marketing my Fuzzy Merge SAS Routines, doing statistical
> analyses, generate lists of "things" for my volunteer activities, etc etc.
>
> But in total honesty, "On the Job" experience is the best teacher as you
> can not possibly generate all the variation of tasks on your own using
> SAS.  This kind of experience will enlighten you to the depth that SAS can
> reach and solve your computer/business problems.
>
> HTH,
> Charles Patridge
>
> If there is anything else I can assist you with, please email me, and I
> will gladly help out where I can.
>
>
> --- Original Message ---
> From: "Richard Collins" <rw_collins@hotmail.com>
> To: Charles_S_Patridge@prodigy.net
> Subject: Introduction to SAS
>
> Mr. Patridge
>
> I came across your web page (http://www.sconsig.com) while researching SAS
> job opportunities.  I recently finished my Master's degree in Computer
> Science and started looking for jobs related to the fields of Data Mining
> and Statistics.   My undergraduate degree (Industrial Engineering) focused
> heavily on Statistics, while my Masters focused on Artificial
Intelligence,
> including pattern recognition and data mining using decision trees, neural
> networks and clustering.
>
> Initially, I did not find very many non-academic jobs which fit my skill
> set.   However, I eventually came across some SAS consulting jobs which
> appear to fit my background perfectly.   The only issue is that most of
> them require multiple years of SAS experience.   I was wondering if you
> could relate to me some of the places that the SAS consultants that you
> know initially learned SAS.
>
> Thank You,
>
> Richard Collins
> University of South Florida
> 813-936-8030
> rw_collins@hotmail.com