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Arunabh Choudhury’s journey from student at Drexel University to associate analyst at OneMain Financial was nearly seamless. Looking back at the transition, he recounts the accessibility and effectiveness of the University’s career advisors, particularly Kelly Deily, an associate director for graduate student services.
“She helped me with a personalised strategy to get interviews with companies, tailor my 60-second elevator pitch, and answer the ‘tell me about you’ question by leveraging my prior work and academic experience,” explains the graduate from India.
After all, when asked about the professional exposure they received as students, Drexel’s LeBow College of Business graduates have plenty to share. For Choudhury, this meant interning at OneMain Financial, where he worked on a project that offered customers discounts on annual percentage rates (APR) and enabled auto-pay from their accounts. “It involved some complex SQL query writing and data models, like decision trees and random forest on Python,” he says.
Source: Drexel University, LeBow College of Business
Thankfully, Drexel LeBow’s MS in Business Analytics offers a comprehensive curriculum, including core analytics courses and various electives. Its customisable, interdisciplinary nature ensures students step into workplaces able to excel in areas they’re most passionate about — be it information systems, statistics, or modelling. “I believe my decision to minor in finance was a good one,” says Choudhury. “Plus, courses on SQL, Python, and statistics were very relevant to my internship success.”
Similarly, Harish Thalinki made great strides during his summer internship with T-Mobile, where he supported HR analytics and worked on projects to optimise employee rewards and recognition. His role allowed him to work closely with senior leadership and better understand the company’s culture. The solid foundation Thalinki gained from his coursework, especially in customer analytics and visualisation tools, helped prepare him for the opportunity and refine his skill sets.
“From T-Mobile, I feel I have a huge network and friends for life, and it’s a place where I would love to work,” he says. “I have a very clear direction now and a sense of what to do and what the possibilities are.”
Urban Outfitters and its related companies, including Anthropologie, have also welcomed Drexel students as interns. Building on this partnership, LeBow’s Centre for Applied AI and Business Analytics offered a term-length consulting course, during which MS in Business Analytics students worked on a data-driven project. “Overall, it gave me a great learning experience of a data professional working on a real-time analytics project,” says student Sunita Barik.
Source: Drexel University, LeBow College of Business
The Centre provides opportunities for students to connect with industry leaders from companies like Google, Pfizer, and Southwest Airlines, among others, for data-driven projects, analytics competitions, speaker events, and other engagements. Meanwhile, the Dana and David Dornsife Office for Experiential Learning offers innovative solutions for businesses while providing hands-on opportunities for students.
To date, students have applied advanced machine learning and data analysis techniques to countless real-world projects. They have used Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyse customer perceptions for a multinational chemical company, compared classification models for social media data insights for a pharmaceutical corporation, and developed predictive behaviour models for a financial corporation to optimise customer savings strategies.
This is how experiential the MS in Business Analytics was designed to be, leveraging Drexel’s over century-long tradition of industry-driven education. Delivered from the University City Campus in Philadelphia, this programme is all about nurturing statistical and programming expertise, business acumen, and storytelling abilities to create actionable strategies for business growth and innovation.
That’s precisely what MS in Business Analytics graduates are doing today as data analysts, business intelligence analysts, advanced analytics specialists, and data scientists at PECO/Exelon, Goldman Sachs, Blackrock, Amazon, Vanguard, Tesla, CVS Health, and Starbucks. Following in the footsteps of the business analytics alumni before them, 2023 full-time graduates saw success. As many as 90 percent landed employment within six months of graduating, earning an average salary of US$88,666.
What they all have in common is gratitude towards Drexel LeBow’s Career Services — who offers one-to-one career coaching, career management tools like Big Interview and Handshake, and a range of workshops and programmes. These resources are especially beneficial for students from abroad looking to gain professional experience in the U.S. once they graduate.
Doing so should be no problem, considering the MS in Business Analytics is STEM-designated. This means students with F1 visas can qualify for a 24-month OPT extension in addition to the standard 12 months. Learn what else sets it apart.
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