The University of NSW in conjunction with SAS Australia offers a second-year undergraduate course focusing on the management of large volumes of data using SAS software tools.

The course provides students with the skills required to manage large data sets using SAS and gives them the opportunity to participate in a work experience program and also sit for the SAS Base certification exam.

Melissa Cassar, SAS academic program manager, said, "Offering work experience is extremely important and we hope to place 50 students with customers across banking, manufacturing, telecommunications and government departments this year. We also provide an after-course service in helping the students find employment."

Sandeep Mane, 31, was one of many students to benefit from the course, said: "Not only did the SAS course give me the work experience I needed to get full-time employment they went the extra step and found me a job after I completed the course."

Abhijit Horem, who also secured a job - with Citibank - following his course, agreed. "The course and the SAS Institute give you ample assistance to make sure you have an excellent knowledge of SAS Base, providing a very solid platform to develop even further when entering the work force. It also gives a good grounding in the basic principles of programming, which has enabled me to learn other languages quickly on the job.