how long to be a certified beginner in SAS ?

[cdebon]

Hello,

I know VBA Excel and have notions on SQL, I have an interview for which it is necessary to be operational in SAS. I'm a fast learner (engineering school). Anyone has a rough idea on how long it takes to reach the level? I can take any necessary tutorial and books.

Thanks very much in advance,

Chris

[LinusH]

It's like any other sport: a combination of spent time, talent and available material (in this case tutorials, access to a SAS installation etc). A mentor (PT) is useful too.

[Vince28_Statcan]

I assume it depends on how broad your SAS knowledge needs to be for the job but to get accustomed to SAS 9.2, it took me about a week and I had no sql knowledge whatsoever. Only some R, C and VBA. I have to say that if you are really comfortable learning new programming languages, just say that outright while looking extremely confident. I've surpassed the SAS knowledge of many 5+ years users here at work due to my natural inclination towards programming(and I've only been a SAS user for 9 months). Most stat software users are not natural programmers. IT classes used to be the bane of my math major classmates.

[DebbiBJ]

We had a Masters student / intern start from scratch this summer and she was fine by the end of her 3 months.  And that was spending maybe 1/4 or less of her time programming.  Wouldn't be surprised if it took you more than a week to be able to fake it.   Good luck!