Five takeaways from the SAS Spring Masterclass 2023 in Copenhagen
Here at SAS, we do a lot of work with universities and colleges to close the data science skills gap. Most of what we do is with students on data science Masters’ courses. After all, they are the ones who have already decided to specialise in data science. They are therefore extremely interested in anything that will boost their real-world analytical skills and make them more employable and ‘workplace-ready’.
However, should we be engaging with students at a much earlier stage? In essence, should we try to influence them earlier on in their career journey to consider data science? Understanding data is now a key skill in today’s workplace, so it makes sense to help broaden access to that skill.
Reaching out across academia
As part of this thinking, I recently organised a spring masterclass about SAS for students from Det Internationale Gymnasium Niels Brock. Niels Brock is a business college, one of the largest schools in Denmark. It provides specialised high school programmes and offers a wide range of business-oriented programs and courses including vocational education and training, business college and post-secondary education.
The masterclass was conceived as a way to encourage students to try SAS Skill Builder for Students to gain skills in data science. It was also very much a test of what was possible, and what the students would be interested in. So what did we learn from the experience?
- Running an introductory session was a good way to spark interest
We kicked off the masterclass with a big introductory afternoon session for lots of students from the college. The idea was to interest the students in the masterclass. I started by explaining a bit more about SAS and the masterclass, and what they could expect from it. The students then had a talk from Lars Kirdan about big data analysis, opportunities and limitations. Finally Casper Pedersen talked about SAS itself, and our business model, to set the scene.
- Selection worked well as a combination of expressions of interest and teacher selection
We knew that we could only run a masterclass for a limited number of students. It was therefore important to select the right students. After the introductory session, students were invited to express an interest in attending, and the professor selected around 20 from those expressions of interest. Most of the students were in their third year of the business course, but there was also a group of first-year students invited, because they had proved a great interest in analytics.
- You need to be able to trust your collaborators
As with any collaboration, it is the quality of trust that matters. I realised this most clearly when it came to the selection of the students. I was slightly concerned about the group of younger students being involved, because some of them were much younger than the others. However, the professor in charge was confident that it would work—and he was quite right. In fact, the younger students were among the most impressive in the class.
- Involving others from SAS was helpful in providing inspiration and keeping everyone interested
Each masterclass session was for an afternoon, and I invited two speakers to come to each. The students therefore heard from a range of colleagues about different aspects of analytics. They also spent time working on programming and analytics, to become familiar with the software and how it worked. In the last session, they had to present their work and a jury of SAS employees judged the projects and awarded prizes in four categories, data, analysis, presentation and overall project.
- The students actually spent more time than I expected in our offices
We ran four sessions for the students: two afternoons one week, and two the next. They also had to complete a ‘case challenge’ over the two weeks. I offered them access to our Copenhagen office whenever they wanted. I didn’t really expect them to take me up on that, but they spent most of the four course days in our meeting rooms, working on the case. This was great, because it showed that they were really interested and engaged in the class.
Where next for the SAS Masterclass?
Overall, I was really impressed with the students, the quality of their work, and particularly that they got so much done in just two weeks. I was also delighted that their teacher voted this the most useful masterclass that the students have done.
We are already planning the next one later this year.
Do you have any experience with doing these sorts of events?
