Case Study: North Carolina State University gives students a competitive edge with SAS OnDemand for Academics (SAS)

NCSU professor gives students edge

North Carolina State University associate professor Fay Cobb Payton redesigned her senior IT capstone to address a tough market: rising unemployment among recent grads and a growing shortage of analytical talent. Her challenge was to give undergraduates real-world, enterprise-level experience and practical analytics skills so they would stand out to employers.

Payton’s course uses SAS—including SAS OnDemand for Academics—and team-based projects supplied by industry and government partners so students learn data warehousing, mining, quality and predictive analytics on messy, real datasets. Graduates report immediate impact in the workplace and have landed roles at firms like KPMG, Cisco, IBM, Unisys and Merck, commanding higher starting salaries, while Payton has gained research opportunities and recognition as a thought leader.

North Carolina State University

Fay Cobb Payton

Associate Professor, Information Technology