Dear Reader,
When I was growing up, there were two kinds of Sundays: regular Sundays and George Sundays. George was the proprietor of a local Italian restaurant in my hometown who hosted the extended LaRusso clan for Sunday lunch three or four times each year. His restaurant, appropriately named George's, is home to some of my favorite childhood memories – and some of my worst.

Every couple of months, my aunts, uncles, dozens of cousins, and my family would take over George's backroom and see if we could challenge the city's noise ordinance. George would do nothing to discourage us, appearing every so often to playfully fire balls of uncooked dough at us or ply us with more caffeine-laced sugary drinks, despite instructions to the contrary from our parents.

Invariably, though, an otherwise pleasant afternoon took a turn for the worse as we were leaving the restaurant. That was when my parents, thinking they were doing my siblings and me a favor, would let us choose one item from George’s famous “candy wall.” You see, George didn’t stock just one or two different kinds of candy; he had dozens: every chocolate bar, brand of gum and jelly bean flavor imaginable. For a 6- or 7-year old kid, George's Candy Wall was just too much. All these choices paralyzed me. Ten minutes of indecisiveness and several ultimatums later, my parents would usher me out of the restaurant, usually empty-handed and crying. Even on the rare occasion when I did settle on something, I spent the rest of the afternoon lamenting my decision, thinking I left behind something that I would have enjoyed more. (Thirty years later, after discovering Barry Schwartz's book The Paradox of Choice, I understand why I was so indecisive. Check it out if you get the chance.)

As I consider all the great learning opportunities SAS Education offers our users, I wonder if you sometimes feel like you’re staring at George’s Candy Wall when you examine our list of courses. SAS offers more than 150 courses designed to make you a better user, but with so many good choices, I’m sure it can sometimes be hard to choose the perfect one. While we’ve always offered students comprehensive course outlines and access to our curriculum consultants for guidance, we’ve just added another excellent resource to help you decide on the best course for you: online pre-course assessments.

The assessments, written and reviewed by subject matter experts within SAS Education, provide a series of multiple-choice questions that will help you determine if you're ready for that particular course, or if you should consider another one instead. The assessments will help you find the perfect course - and make you feel a little bit like a kid in a candy store.

Here's to productive learning experiences and sugar highs.

Thanks for reading,
Larry LaRusso
Editor, SAS Training Report