Which one should I do?

[Kurt]

I graduated from college 4 years ago and did a mistake-- I became a teacher. I have been unemployed for the last year and is missing my mathematics at a higher level. I am thinking about changing profession and don't really know what to dibble in as yet. Since I am broke like really broke and can not get financial aid I was thinking about getting certified or passing some exam so I can get my feet in the door.

My question is take the Actuarial Exam P and FM or the SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9?

Or is there any other qualification that will get me through the door, so I can save and go for my masters?

 

[euroazn]

A) Do not double post
B) Go to the actuary forums. This is the wrong forum to ask these questions.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Do you have any technical skills? Web/coding?
Can you do some freelance work to see where you are good at, passionate about?
Certificates won't do much help for you and may get you much further into debt, that's a feeling I have.

 

[TraderJoe]

Actuarial Exams will offer high degree of job security. But pay is quite low (about $120 K) and it takes 5 years to pass the exams. May be better to do a quick MFE in one year from a good school. You can generally get student loans to cover the cost. If you are expert in SAS, there are many consulting / contract gigs available and you can make decent cash if you are based in New York City. Also, with proper tax planning you can bring a $300 K income down to $70 K before you have to pay any taxes. These IT people do this all the time.

 

[atreides]

Having the SAS certificate is nice.. However, I don't believe it is used widely in finance as compared to R and SQL. Maybe practitioners can comment on this.

The SAS Base certification will cost you $90 if you are a student / affiliated with a University (education pricing), and you can find study materials on the web (pm me if you want more details)

http://support.sas.com/certify/

A lot of Pharma, IT , Govt Jobs require SAS programmers

 

[Kurt]

I ask on this site because of it being unbiased. If I had post in an actuary forum they would have tell me to take the exam if I had post in an IT forum they would have told me to talk the SAS.