Three steps to help your student interns become data savvy statisticans

With data standards rising in every industry, there’s a high demand for analysts and an unfortunate shortage of analytic talent. Many organizations are turning to student internships as a low-cost way to hire support, train potential new employees and provide real-world experience for students.

But, as Aleksandra Stein pointed out in her presentation at the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference in San Francisco this week: “Some students you can ‘buy off the shelf’ and implement right away. But some need help in performing all of the functions the organizations is looking to them to perform.”

What these students learn in an academic setting is great, said Stein, but too often, the data they’re given to work on at school is not typical real-world data, i.e., these students are used to working with data that’s complete, balanced, correctly collected with analysis in mind and normal. Ah, if only….

So, Stein suggests a CRASH COURSE in dealing with data. Here are the top three things your young student analysts need to know:

Data structure: | Data content: | Data documentation:

Preparing

Restructuring

Mapping

Identifying keys

Data types

Formats

Sorting

Filtering

Merging

Counting

Summarizing

Identifying blanks

Internally

Externally

Log files

SAS Help

“These guys may not have ever had to write SAS code from scratch, and SAS Help is fantastic,” said Stein.

This crash course can take the form of a formal presentation, hard copy, soft copy, or an informal chat – “what you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it,” said Stein. “The time you invest to help them adjust to ‘real-world’ data will help you get your student interns to productivity much, much sooner.”

For more tips from Stein, read her full paper.

Three steps to help your student interns become data savvy statisticans was published on SAS Users.