Greetings
As a technical PM working heavily on SAS i may help you share something on this.
First you're right in saying that learning SAS programming is really impotant and having been there in the past you're also right saying that a base course wont really prepare you.
Actually even the SAS Masterclass (one month/8 hours a day) isn't really enough.
What my company does (we're SAS Alliance partners) with freshly hired graduates is put them on an intensive training which usually consist in a month long internal course developed in the last 10 years with lots of exercise to see if the trainee is understanding how thing works, then he is given some assignments (internal) that have to do with either programming or the ebi framework and after 2 months of that (so 3 months training) if he is smart and good he join existing project and senior team members on consulting work learning on the job.
Usually after 6 month the new trainee is good enough to work on his own on not overly complex projects.
I have a new course starting on July (i'd be the teacher this time around) and i may put up the slides someplace for you both to download.
I'll leave you with some very small hints that usually are overlooked but that really makes the difference !
1=) Learn how things works ! Its really important to understand how the data step (loop) works and what is the PDV and how it works.
2=) There are tons of procedures, you dont really need to learn many of them nor to learn all the syntax (you can have the help when u program), other than the very important ones (proc sort, means, freq, transpose, sql, and few others) its just important to remember that there may be a procedure that does exactly what you want so you can hook it up when you need it.
3=) VERY OVERLOOKED -> SAS is still exceptionally good as a Data Management tool, learn to use it for data manipulation and understand the PERFORMANCE ISSUES involved and how things change when u work on sas datasteps or with a databsase through sas/access
4=) In SAS you can do the same thing in many different ways, learn first to solve the
problem, then learn to use the best way to solve it.
This is particular important when you deal with huge dataset (> 5 gb)
5=) Use MACROS to make your code resusable!!
Of course if you live in Italy i'd be very glad to help you out with more material or hints, or if you're really really serious about learning SAS and cant find any valid alternatives drop me a line and we may work something out.
Good luck for you both!