My SAS Certification Log

[Nietzsche]

week 43 update.

Finished Programming 2 yesterday (29th OCT) took me 17.9 hours.  One of the worst experience I had to endure in my life. I can believe SAS Institute thinks it is worth charging $1200 AUD for. In fact I wouldn't even recommend it even if SAS institute pay you to study it, there are much better options IMO.

Just give you a simple example from lesson 7 because the memory is still fresh..

In lesson 7 part 2 on Transpose Procedure, the in part where the course suppose to "teach" you how to turn a wide table to a narrow table, is this how it is taught..

you get a 27 second video with only a diagram like this, and THAT IS LITERALLY IT... with no explanation on the code or syntax or anything.. and then it gets better..

right after the 27 video, you get throw into this shamble SAS institute calls "activity".

So you read the following instruction, then you have to into your SAS studio, find the corresponding sas file, open it, put the var statement, then run it and see the result and figure out how the syntax and the results fit together.

And that's it, that is all the "teaching" you gonna get on proc transpose wide to narrow, then do some difficult practice questions, it's like watch someone hammer a nail then get asked to build a hut with instructions at different places.

And when you do the quiz, you don't have a single page for easy reference where you can see the explanation with code and output/result, you'll have to go into the course, find the activity because the video is useless, find the activity number, then go back your SAS studio, copy the code from the activty insturtion to see the result and all without explanation on any of the syntax/code structure.

yeah sorry for the rant, the 18 hours could be much better invested on better materials. 

[fja]

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@Nietzsche wrote:

Finished Programming 2 yesterday (29th OCT) took me 17.9 hours.  One of the worst experience I had to endure in my life. I can believe SAS Institute thinks it is worth charging $1200 AUD for. In fact I wouldn't even recommend it even if SAS institute pay you to study it, there are much better options IMO.

Hello @Nietzsche !

I am sorry to learn that you are disapointed with the course. IMHO it is helpful, but maybe you are better off with a book -  like @MarkusWeick has already pointed out.

I personally used The Little SAS Book for preparation. It is not sufficient for the Advanced Programming Ceritficate, though. Nevertheless I found it easy to fill the gap by using the standard documentation on sas.com.

Just my 2cts

Kind regards

fja

PS: Just a quick question: Is the Programming 2 course free at the moment or have you enrolled for it, i.e. spent the $1,2k?

[Reeza]

According to the screenshots included, the video should be 27 minutes not 27 seconds, is it possible that video was corrupted?

In lesson 7 part 2 on Transpose Procedure, the in part where the course suppose to "teach" you how to turn a wide table to a narrow table, is this how it is taught..

you get a 27 second video with only a diagram like this, and THAT IS LITERALLY IT... with no explanation on the code or syntax or anything.. and then it gets better..

[MarkusWeick]

Hi @Reeza,

I just watched the video. It is supposed to be 27 seconds long. But it is also part of a sequence of 8 learning bits on PROC Transpose.

[Reeza]

Thanks for the double check 🙂

[Tom]

I haven't tried any of these courses so I have no idea how well constructed they are.

But the step you highlight for learning/practicing PROC TRANSPOSE looks appropriate to me.  It reinforces the fact that the default behavior is to transpose numeric variables (like the mathematical operation that it is named after!).  And that if you want to transpose character variables you MUST use the VAR statement.

I do think the example you posted of a question looks a little simplistic (or perhaps over tricky?).  The output does not match the input.  What happened to the day of the week?  Perhaps they wanted you to notice that the day of the week information had disappeared and so eliminate all of the answers that reference the variable DAY?  If so it sounds more like teaching you how to take a test than learning how to use PROC TRANSPOSE.

[StaceySyphus]

I am the author of this course and would like to share a few thoughts and suggestions. First, I am sorry the format of this course did not fit with your particular learning style. As mentioned by another contributor, different learners certainly have preferences with how they best acquire knowledge, and although we strive to provide effective instruction for all, that is an impossible goal. Fortunately we do have other learning options, including some of the books and other resources that have been recommended.  I hope those materials work better for your learning style.

In general, I will say that this course is very highly rated. Here are the overall reviews from one platform:

I’d like to take a moment to explain the methodology we follow in our training. In our courses, we want to maximize the time spent learning through actual, hands-on-keyboard experience. Videos are intended to introduce concepts and syntax, but we want learners to work directly with real code and data to discover what the various SAS programming statements and options actually do.  After all, the ultimate goal our courses is not only to pass the certification exams, but to produce capable SAS programmers that are comfortable writing code, modifying it, making mistakes, and fixing them. The certification exam is a means to validate that ability. Activities are interspersed throughout the training to provide short (3-5 minutes) hands-on opportunities to write/modify code to discover a concept or validate understanding. The multi-level practices are longer (~10 minutes each) and allow you to apply the concepts in real-world scenarios. Level 1 practices are fairly basic and provide a lot of guidance. Level 2 practices provide less guidance and highlight some of the more advanced features presented. Challenge practices are intended to go beyond what was taught in the section by either integrating other concepts taught in previous sections or directing you to SAS Help and documentation to learn more. We simply can’t teach everything there is to know about SAS syntax in a course, so we want you to learn the basics AND know where to go to learn more. The challenge practices simulate the experience of writing SAS code in a work environment - you start with your existing knowledge to build programs, but then rely on SAS documentation and other helpful resources to accomplish your task. Complete, integrated solutions are provided for all activities and practices for learners that would like help along the way.

I would also like to explain the thinking behind the content included in the PROC TRANSPOSE section as an example. The section begins with a short video to show the basic syntax. This is followed by a guided activity where the learner examines the initial data, then sequentially adds various statements and options to PROC TRANSPOSE (one at a time) to examine the impact each has on the resulting table. Then there is another short video to explain the next step in the progression of the syntax (the BY statement) followed by a 4-minute demo that is a comprehensive example of the syntax taught up to that point. Subsequent concept videos in the section are followed by additional activities, demonstrations, or practices. If a learner watches all videos and completes the hands-on activities and practices, this section would take approximately 35-45 minutes. Does this section cover ALL that is possible with PROC TRANSPOSE?  Definitely not – we could write an entire course on the topic. However, the intent is to introduce the procedure and its core capabilities. And the certification exam would only test these core capabilities.

[ballardw]

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@StaceySyphus wrote:
(In part)

Does this section cover ALL that is possible with PROC TRANSPOSE?  Definitely not – we could write an entire course on the topic. However, the intent is to introduce the procedure and its core capabilities. And the certification exam would only test these core capabilities.

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Having used, abused and misused, Proc Transpose for nearly 30 years I agree with @StaceySyphus that 45 minutes is not going to cover all possibilities.

Be glad that memory is so cheap and plentiful these days. I used to get lazy and have Proc transpose run out of resources requiring a lot of time while thrashing the disk with temporary read/write operations though I am sure someone has tried to transpose larger sets than I use these days and have similar issues.

[Nietzsche]

I just came back to my log, since when did I accept stacey's response as my solution? Can other people designate solution on OP's behalf?  Sorry I am new to the community so I am not sure how the voting/solution system work. 

There shouldn't be a solution, this is a personal log, not a question/answer thread.

[Nietzsche]

okay, I just found out that the mod accepted Stacey's response to my criticism of her course as my "solution". 

Letting one SAS employee accepting another SAS employee's response as the solution without OP's knowledge is kind of conflict of interest in a so-called "community"?

Happen for the author to response to my criticism, but I have never even read her response before it being labelled as solution.

[Nietzsche]

Hi Stacey

Thank you for the detailed response, although you wrote alot even in your final paraphrase didn't address any of my specific complaints I mentioned regarding to wide to narrow proc transpose, your response in the your final paragraph was very general and rationalise how your course was designed as a whole and did not address

why wide to narrow transpose is only 27 second long with only one slide of a two tables, not explaining of the wide to narrow transpose syntax in video, no full code solution in the activity, wide to narrow transpose is just one of the many many examples throughout the whole course, I only mentioned it because it is the last one I did in lesson 7. 

Anyways I have moved onto the prep guide, which is much more detailed and comprehensive. There is full solution to the quiz at the end of chapters. Maybe I am just more suited to the book style. 

peace out.

[ChrisHemedinger]

FYI, I've marked this topic as "No solution needed" to keep it as a discussion and not a "solvable" question. More details on that in this thread.

[Nietzsche]

Happy week 45.

Week 44 update, total SAS study time 13.9 hours (not including any break time). So about 14 hours got me from start to chapter 6.3 with significant time spent on cropping and bookmarking and copying quiz answers next to the questions in the PDF file

[Sumanthredz111]

can i learn cidsc sdtm adam tlf advance sas macros and sql in sas academics as i have notes and videos?

do i need sas latest software to learn ?

how can i access latest sas software for free?

[MarkusWeick]

Hi @Sumanthredz111,

a general advise: if you post new questions as a new topic, you are more likely to get an answer.

Best

Markus