Bricolage: My autobiography, with SAS procedures
I thought the title of Al Franken’s book , The Truth, with jokes , was great and I wanted to do something just like it. Unfortunately, I’m not that funny.
Often, the discussion comes up among colleagues whether it is better for one’s career to be a specialist or a generalist. It’s a little (a lot) too late for me to become the world’s foremost authority on PROC REPORT (that’s Kim Le Bouton, isn’t it?). Right after wondering whether anyone uses PROC REPORT any more, I starting thinking of all of the basic concepts I learned from it that I apply regularly, mostly with PHP.
My point, which you have by now despaired of me having, is that when it comes to starting a fascinating career, SAS is as good as starting place as any, and probably better than most.
If you decide to be a specialist, your career path probably looks something like this:
You get a bachelors and a masters in statistics, you become a data analyst and work your way up to managing the entire division. If you do that, work your way up the ranks to knowing absolutely everything about clinical trials of migraine drugs, you’ll probably end up with a nice house in the suburbs, a 401K and three weeks of vacation each year.
If that’s you, cool. To be honest, though, I look at friends who have spent 20, 30 or 40 years in the same company and think I would lose my mind.
But, you say,
What can I do? I have an M.S. in statistics (or business or sociology) and two years of experience using SAS. What options do I have?
Well, honey, you have come to the right blog. In my decidedly non-linear career, I have been an industrial engineer, professor in schools of education, engineering, business, liberal arts and human services. I think the only one I have missed is fine art. I’ve been a consultant, programmer, statistician, consultant again and now am president/co-founder of a gaming start-up.
Over the next few posts, I’ll explain a dozen ways in which I have built a career by bricolage – that is, from building stuff – programs, companies – using whatever was lying about . All of my various careers have had their roots in statistics and SAS. Could I have learned the same concepts and gotten the same results using another programming language, taking a different path? Probably. But I didn’t.
Very good career for a professional.