I have been attending career days for many years. It’s a great way to talk directly to students and find out what they are looking for from a job or employer. It is also a chance to show students some of the tools that they can use to improve their skills and stand out from the crowd, such as SAS Skill Builder for Students. The other aspect is that it is a way to meet future customers. After all, many data science students are likely to go and work for our customers, so it’s good to build relationships as early as possible. There are therefore many benefits to attending career days. However, I’ve noticed some interesting trends this year, especially compared with the last few years, but also when you look pre-pandemic.    There has been a backlash against online careers events During the pandemic, we had lots of online careers fairs. These were actually great, because you could talk to even more students than is possible face-to-face. They were also cheaper to put on, and cheaper for employers to attend. I think we probably all thought, if not actively hoped, that those online events might outlast the pandemic. However, the opposite has turned out to be true. People who have organised online fairs have had a lot of trouble getting students to attend. It seems that students really want to meet potential employers face-to-face. I have certainly seen an increase in numbers attending onsite careers events.   Employers are increasingly recognising the value of career days and fairs I have noticed that several careers fairs and events have become really popular with employers since the pandemic. There is one particular event that we have been invited to attend several times in the past, but it never felt important enough. This year, when I tried to book onto it, there was a waiting list. This is a specialist IT event, so it gives some idea about the priority being placed by employers on attracting students with those skills. There is no question that these events have become much more popular with employers since the pandemic.   The students who attend career days are not necessarily typical of students in Denmark It is interesting to note that we tend to see a lot of foreign and exchange students attending career days and fairs. The numbers are definitely not representative of the overall student population in Denmark. We also see higher numbers of these students engaging with SAS Skill Builder. I believe that it is possible that these students expect to find it harder to get a job at the end of their studies. They therefore want ways to help them to stand out from the crowd. This may be by developing additional skills, or by putting in the effort to talk to employers.   Career days and fairs are increasingly used as networking opportunities by businesses At the career days and fairs that I have attended this year, we have chatted to a lot of students. However, we have also found that we were approached by customers and potential customers from other companies at the fair wanting to talk about possible collaborations on talent connection. We also talked to plenty of faculty members wanting to talk about using SAS in their teaching. These events are about so much more than jobs. This makes a lot of sense, because all those attending have a shared interest in closing the data science skills gap. It is natural that we should discuss ways of doing that when we are in the same place.   More broadly, we are seeing a wider range of activities focused on careers The other aspect to consider is the broadening of careers activities. Yes, career fairs and days are still being held by universities, and we are still attending them. However, we are also seeing a broader range of career-related events and initiatives. There is growing recognition that students need to be exposed to more ideas about careers at an earlier stage. For instance, I recently ran a SAS Masterclass in collaboration with a local business academy, attended by some students as young as 16—and a key part of the feedback from the school was that it was good to give these opportunities to younger students. I think we will see much more of these events for younger students in future years.   Your turn What have you been seeing in your country? We’d love to hear from you. ... View more

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?  ... View more

Does caregiving put you at risk for depression? How do Netflix Shows influence tourism?   These and hundreds of other questions were answered in The Curiosity Cup in 2022.   Registration for the 2023 edition of The Curiosity Cup just opened – and this year we want to get the trophy to the Nordics. So todays juletip is all you need to know about the competition – and some ideas to get you started. If you are not a student, you will hopefully be inspired to reach out to the students in your network.   The Curiosity Cup is a global SAS Student Competition. The Curiosity Cup brings student teams together from across the globe for a competition of real-world analytics skills and put your knowledge of data science and analytics to the test.   Team Requirements Teams must have two to four students who are enrolled part time or full time at the time of paper submission. Students must be at least 18 years old at the time of paper submission. Teams must have a faculty or educator adviser. Competition Guidelines Teams can choose their own SAS® learning software, data and analytical question for the competition. SAS software allowed: SAS® Viya® for Learners, SAS OnDemand for Academics, University-licensed SAS software. Data and analytical question: Student teams may choose their own data set and pose their own analytical question. Data sets must be publicly available, and entries must include a link to the data. You can also enter your bachelor or thesis project in the competition.   You can read more about the competition, the prizes and register your team here: The Curiosity Cup | SAS   Click this link to watch the videos: The winners of 2022    If you want to take a closer look at the winners of the Curiosity Cup 2022 check them out here: Depression: Does Caregiving Put You at Risk? A European-Wide Study Two Possible Approaches for the DASS Dataset Influence of Netflix Shows in European Tourism   Reach out to your local Academic Program Manager if you have questions or want to have a talk about your entry in the competition: Norway/Sweden: Vegard Hansen, Vegard.hansen@sas.com Finland: Juha Jokinen, juha.jokinen@sas.com Denmark/Iceland: Anne Olesen, anne.olesen@sas.com   Let’s take the trophy to the Nordics this year🏆 ... View more