Goizueta Business School will soon offer a solution to a growing demand for data scientists with business acumen. A Master of Science program in Business Analytics (MSBA) will launch in Fall 2017.
“There seems to be this need for a certain kind of person,” said Ram Chellappa, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management and the head of the program. “Business problems now sit on a three-legged-stool; there is a business person, a tech person, and a data person. And these three people don’t seem to be able to communicate because they use very different languages [in the workplace].”
The program will include 10 new courses. Students with a knowledge of at least one programming language and relational databases are best-suited for the program, which will leverage R as a primary statistical language and Python for data manipulation.
“The volume and variety of data that is being created, stored, consumed, and transferred has just become mind-boggling,” Chellappa said. “Many organizations are struggling with figuring out how to make use of, manage, and handle this data…”
Chellappa proposed the program to the Goizueta faculty where it was approved by a near-unanimous vote and was soon ratified by the Emory University Board of Trustees in June. The program also falls within the school’s stated effort to teach business analytics and make an impact in a world increasingly full of data and technology.
One of the advantages of bringing the program to Goizueta is the potential for spillover benefits to other programs.
“For most courses offered in the MSBA program, we will try to create a less-technical version for the BBA and MBA programs as well,” Chellappa says. “In addition, efforts are being made to create custom executive programs in the area of business analytics.”
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