When an employer benefit covered college costs, Christine Vaudo seized the opportunity to earn an associate鈥檚 degree at Middlesex Community College. She didn鈥檛 stop there: Vaudo went on to earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree in business administration from the Manning School of Business and then decided to pursue her master鈥檚 degree in business analytics.
Returning to school after a long gap means you know better what you want, Vaudo says. When she heard about the Manning School鈥檚 new business analytics degree, she knew it was for her. A lover of math, she has experience in computer science and working with databases. And the career opportunities are booming.
听鈥淓veryone鈥檚 looking for analytics. Whether it鈥檚 fundraising, finance, marketing 鈥� there are lots of jobs,鈥� she says.听
The program has been a good fit. Vaudo especially appreciates the many opportunities to interact with industry professionals, whether they are offering guest lectures or evaluating students鈥� project proposals, as is required for the program鈥檚 capstone project.听
Those projects address a current problem that a company faces. Student teams propose solutions to them, which are then evaluated by the company鈥檚 executives and members of the MSBA program鈥檚 industry advisory board, who themselves are experienced professionals. Vaudo was also on a student team selected to present research at a national business analytics challenge in 2017 in Anaheim, Calif., for a study on 鈥淪ummer Olympic Games: A Holistic Data Analysis of Factors Influencing Women鈥檚 Performance.鈥� She and a classmate looked at how a country鈥檚 social, economic, political, health and education conditions impact the performance of their female Olympians. At a research symposium offered in tandem with the competition, Vaudo and the other students had the opportunity to network with Big Data experts from more than 900 companies and 45 countries.听
It鈥檚 not only these experiences that Vaudo says excite her about the program, but it鈥檚 also the faculty. 鈥淭he professors are all so friendly, and they bring different strengths, different backgrounds and different job histories,鈥� she says.
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