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Prepare for America's hottest job with a master's in business analytics

The Bureau of Labor Statistics continues to cite high demand for data scientists across a variety of industries — and recent privacy concerns and the gig economy will only add to that demand.

2018-06-08

Privacy concerns take many shapes and sizes, from hacked Twitter accounts to infiltrated bank records and identity theft. As the world moves more digital so too does the effort to exploit and harm sensitive information stored in the cloud.

As Bloomberg notes, this duality between exponential online growth and innovation and the vulnerabilities they create have made data scientists "America's hottest job."

Job postings for data scientists rose 75 percent from January 2015 to January 2018 at Indeed.com, while job searches for data scientist roles rose 65 percent. A growing specialty is 'sentiment analysis,' or finding a way to quantify how many tweets are trashing your company or praising it.

The writing's on the wall

When it launched a master's degree in business analytics (MS-BA) in 2013, ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business was one of a small handful of schools to see the writing on the wall — data wasn't just the future, it was the present. "Many of our faculty actually do consulting with business organizations, so they were seeing that data as an asset was becoming hugely important and many companies were moving this direction," says Professor of Information Systems Michael Goul. "We know that data is the asset — the unique asset — that's going down in price but increasing in quantity, so we're adding more data but it's not costing us a lot of money. How we leverage that data and how we use it inside a company is the key," he adds.

As the MS-BA has grown over time, so has its delivery. Students can now earn the degree in only nine months on ASU's Tempe campus, with classes starting each August, or 100% online in 12 months, starting each January. The courses are the same, so no matter which option you choose, you'll learn leading-edge concepts on where data is going, not where it's been. With courses developed by the departments of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management, the MS-BA is one of the highest-ranked programs of its kind, ranking top five among online graduate business programs by U.S. News & World Report.

Engage with top companies

But the value of the program goes beyond the core curriculum, according to Goul. "We've had companies come in and recruit our students that will take them on-site and pay for them to learn new things because they want to get to know them, as well as explore this technology through the minds of our students," he says. "So these types of industry-university partnerships are really a key to making an emerging program a success."

Another integral feature of the program, whether you pursue on on-campus or online MS-BA, is an applied project, which allows you to take what you've learned throughout the program and leverage that knowledge in a field that meets your interest, be it marketing, finance, supply chain management, or other fields.

In the video below, Prof. Goul breaks down the applied project and how it elevates and personalizes your MS-BA:

Take the next step in your data career

Prepare yourself for the hottest job in Amedrica — discover the full-time, on-campus Master of Science of Business Analytics or the 100% Online MS-BA or fill out the form on this page to receive more information about this innovative program from ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business.

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