Johannesburg, 05 Dec 2016
Even when one carries a BCom honour's degree in economics from the University of Johannesburg, gaining work experience is not always easy, as Shannon Marshman discovered. Fortunately for her, she found out about the SAS Institute internship while searching for appropriate graduate programmes she could apply to.
"It stood out to me because of the exciting possibilities that exist in the world of analytics. I realised immediately that I wanted to do something different to the norm and that SAS would be the company to put me on that path," she says.
Describing her initial six months at SAS as a fun, exciting and challenging experience, Marshman explains that graduates were started off with basic data manipulation in SAS Enterprise Guide 1, before moving on to Base SAS Programming 1 and 2. This was followed by training on SAS SQL 1 and SAS Macro Language 1.
"Further courses included Statistics 1 and soft skills training, which was designed to help graduates acclimatise to the realities of corporate life and encompassed courses such as diversity training and presentation skills.
"I then attended the training that was required for my practical at a SAS client I was to join for the second six months of the programme, namely MultiChoice South Africa. These training courses consisted of SAS Visual Analytics, Applied Analytics with SAS Enterprise Miner and SAS Marketing Optimisation and Automation with CI Studio."
Marshman enthusiastically undertook these training courses, as she claims they helped to broaden her skills in the analytics industry and all the possibilities that come with it.
"I felt very proud and privileged to be part of such an esteemed organisation. SAS solutions are such powerful tools to use in the ever-changing technologically-dependent environment that is modern business, that understanding these deeply is critical to my analytical development."
This provided the necessary preparation to enable her to tackle analytics challenges in the real world - very different compared to the classroom - and this experience significantly impacted her growth as an individual and in terms of her career.
"The next six months at MultiChoice was such a whirlwind for me, as I not only had to adjust to the new culture, but I also had to practically apply what I had learnt at SAS in the preceding six months. It was certainly a steep learning curve, as the margin for error is so much smaller in the business world, when compared to the classroom.
"Nevertheless, I pushed on and continued to learn as much as I could about the business. It has been truly eye-opening to use what I learned to actually solve real business problems and help improve existing processes," Marshman adds.
She explains the data mining project she was assigned became a genuinely exciting and insightful experience. It helped her to forge solid relationships with other team members and enabled her to gain more confidence in her work.
"I really felt that I was adding value to the company, while at the same time building an interesting and challenging career in the analytics space."
Looking ahead, she maintains she is extremely confident, as she knows her internship has equipped her with the skills, confidence and perseverance to excel in the working world.
"My ambition in the future is to advance into the role of data scientist, hopefully leading my own team. Passion is a critical part of any career path and I really enjoy what I do. I am finding my current role as a marketing analyst to be very intriguing and rewarding."
"I will forever be grateful to SAS for believing in me and giving me this amazing opportunity. It really has been a life-changing event. All the staff, including my mentors, are remarkable individuals who carry themselves with such humility and diligence in their work. I would say to anyone considering the SAS graduate programme to go for it - you can be certain that success and happiness will follow," she concludes.
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