How to be a good data analyst by using SAS？

[缘更]

I'm just beginning to learn how to use SAS，the goal of mine is to be a big data analyst.Mathematics is not a problem, but I lack knowledge of SAS .So I want to know what I should learn.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[SAS_Cares]

Thanks for your interest in SAS!  Please view the below options for individual learners and be sure to stay connected here with fellow SAS users! These are great first starting points:

• Access to free online software: SAS OnDemand for Academics https://www.sas.com/en_us/software/on-demand-for-academics.html
• SAS Tutorial | Getting Started with SAS OnDemand for Academics - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmL8fdOd-pI

Additional resources:

• SAS Starter Kit / Getting Started with SAS Skill Builder for Students - YouTube https://www.sas.com/en_us/sas-starter-kit.html
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• Recommended books https://www.sas.com/store/books/categories/getting-started/cBooks-cbooks_categories-cbooks_categorie... for getting started.

Let us know if this helps!

[PaigeMiller]

The only way to get better at anything is to keep doing it, ask questions, see what other people are doing. We have young data analysts in my department, and they do try hard, but sometimes their SAS coding is very inefficient, or sometimes they don't choose the best analysis. It is a common problem.

I add that if you are great at SAS (or any other language), but lousy at data analysis, then you are not a good data analyst. You really need to be good at both.

Specifically for SAS: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Maxims-of-Maximally-Efficient-SAS-Programmers.... Look these over. Write a program. See how your program compares to these Maxims. If one of the Maxims hasn't been applied, see if you can figure out how to apply it.

[SASKiwi]

I wouldn't get too hung up about "big data" either. It's just a buzz word after all and huge data volumes aren't that common anyway. The same principles of data analytics apply regardless of the data size. If you learn efficient programming techniques they will scale well to large data volumes.

[ballardw]

My contribution to this on the Analyst part has two basic pieces:

Can you answer the question(s) the analysis requests. (Simple Example: is there a difference between category X and Y when examining measure Z?)

Can you explain how the answer was derived to people that are not intimately involved with all aspects of the data? (and may not know or care what a hypergeometric distribution, or other buzz word, is or how it is used.)