Data – CA Work Experience Program

SAS Day 5 – Data and Graphs

Today started as usual at 10:00 o’clock in building Q with all of the CA students. Once we all arrived we went to a conference room where Elliot, a data scientist, helped us all set up student accounts for the SAS software. After that Elliot gave us some background on what a data scientist does and what he likes about his job. After that, we all loaded up SAS studio, software that allows you to program stuff. Even though I have no programming experience Elliot was still able to teach me and all the other CA students how to do some basic programming and code. This was really fun for me because it was very hands-on and I learned a little bit about programming and coding which I thought would very hard but in reality, it wasn’t that bad. Next, we headed to building T for lunch. As usual, the lunch was really good. After lunch, we headed back to Building Q to learn about Visual analytics. First, we had Elliot and his co-worker teach us a little bit about visual analytics. Then they walked us through a couple of examples and taught us how to make our own reports. After that, they set us free and allowed us to make our own visualizations and reports. This was really exciting because I got to see how data scientist create pretty reports to talk about patterns in data. Overall I would have to say that today has been one of my favorite days because it was very hands-on and I got to create my own reports. I am looking forward to tomorrow in finance.

SAS Work Experience Day 5

Today all of the Cary Academy students doing the SAS work experience program were together again to learn about and work with the specific software and technologies that employees at SAS use to analyze data and create visuals. From being introduced to the programming system, the SAS design studio, and the visual analytics program, we were learning and experimenting all day – with a mid-day break for chicken tenders at Building T’s cafeteria of course.

One of our main activities was learning about SAS’s programming system. Since I, and all of the other CA students, had never programmed before the idea of this was somewhat daunting. However, with a detailed, step by step introduction to programming, it was much less complex than I had originally imagined. Below are some screen shots of the work we did.

For our data, we entered in some random numbers and then ran the program to create a frequency analysis and means analysis. Some things we learned include always remembering to put a semicolon at the end of each action, and also how to make notes that sit within the code but do not actually run through the system – these show up in green. Also, if the run fails, we learned to go to the log tab – shown below – and see if there are any errors or notes to indicate what went wrong, which is very useful.

After learning the basics of SAS programming, we were introduced to the SAS design studio where visual analytics can be created from data. Together we went step by step through a few examples, with various types of visuals like bar graphs – pictured below, line charts, lists, and more.

Once we had completed these models, we were able to work independently and experiment with the program to create our own visuals. What made this entire process especially interesting is that we were using real data from the UN about frequency and pricing of foods in different nations. Pictured below is one visual that I created with a pie chart and list, set up so that when you select a certain food on the list the pie chart will depict the frequency of it in specific nations.

Overall, today was an amazing introduction to the world of data science, programming, and analytics, which will be extremely useful in the future!!!

SAS Work Experience Day 4

On my fourth day, all of the Cary Academy students participating came together to learn about the GatherIQ app created by SAS, which incorporates both the humanitarian qualities of SAS and all of the data available to them. We got to test out the program on laptops and our phones, and filled out surveys giving feedback and suggestions. GatherIQ is a platform with information and data related to world issues, and the program encourages users to share their perspectives and thoughts on the data via social media, specifically Twitter, which is connected within the program. Below are some screenshots of one example of an article on the GatherIQ app:

After tinkering with the program in small groups and submitting our feedback, we all came together to brainstorm new possible ideas for the app. The target audience for the app is essentially anyone, but mostly is aimed towards middle schoolers and high schoolers as well as young adults. We were able to share our perspective on what tactics and features will resonate with young people. In small groups again, we used a series of guiding questions to gather ideas for GatherIQ, and then presented those to our hosts, who were very open to ideas and interested to hear what we had to say. Overall, this day was very interesting, and I can’t wait to see the next model of the GatherIQ app and how our feedback and ideas may have actually influenced its development!

And we all got to take home some fun GatherIQ merchandise, pictured above 🙂