Poster By Caroline Pugh

During my stint with Sonoma State University's Economic program I have received invaluable training. My peers and I have reached captivating inferences with data – from dissecting effects the movie Sideways appeared to have on merlot and pinot wine sales, to analyzing lift due to promotion of brands given competitor promotional activity. We have also had the opportunity to work with massive datasets from US Census data to the "coveted" Nielsen data.

During these past few months of reviewing jobs and internships, I have noticed more than a few positions looking for analysts who are familiar with SQL. Analysts are now often expected to be able to get to the data in order to perform the analyses they are trained for. While this may not seem challenging, SQL is not a skill most Econ, Math, Stats, Finance and Marketing students learn before entering the workforce.

More after the jump.