Re: [work] [PLUG] off-topic: SAS/SPSS/SQL training worth it?

[Barry Roomberg <broom@voicenet.com>]

On Thursday 07 October 2004 10:10 pm, mmalten@comcast.net wrote:
>
> A fundamentals of SAS education package would cost $2700 for three classes
> (it seems SAS is running a sale, ha-hah).  I have the money and I would
> happily spend it to expand my career horizions.  But is SAS the way to go?
> There's also SPSS and SQL in demand.
>

My company uses SAS to create models for direct mail.  We are not stat people, 
we receive the models / code to apply to the data (we house and munge it) 
from our clients.

We have a lot of it running on a mainframe and have been moving to Linux 
slowly but surely.

You can get a an eval copy of SAS Base for free to play for a while.  Read the 
book, get a feel for the "language".  Tell them you are a stats guy and your 
clients are interested in it, and you might buy it.  After a month, your key 
will expire and you send back the media. They might extend it indefinately 
since it is in their best interest to have you push SAS to clients. 

At that point you will have a good enough feel to tell if you want to learn 
more and stick with it.
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