The engineering management degree was created for engineers with three or more years of experience and an interest in management jobs. The 30-credit program, developed in association with the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, offers an alternative to an MBA and allows students to take courses entirely online.
Senior lecturer Dave Sly, coordinator of the new program, said it emphasizes “statistics, process modeling and analysis, quality, information systems, and project management” and includes traditional business courses in accounting, finance, and management.
The business analytics master’s degree, which is the first of its kind offered online in Iowa, is a cohort-based, 21-month interdisciplinary program blending marketing and statistics with technology. It was designed, in partnership with the Iowa State College of Business’s Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems (SCIS), for professionals with at least two years of experience working in positions that involve data-driven decisions.
“Course topics vary from basic foundations of business analytics to the basics of statistical modeling and forecasting, as well as data visualization—how to mine both text-oriented and numbers-oriented data [for] insights into what items need to be tackled,” said Sree Nilakanta, chair of the SCIS department.
The business analytics program launched in August. In addition to online courses, it requires students to attend three one-week sessions on the Iowa State campus: a beginning orientation, a second summer session in which students select teams for capstone projects, and a final session during the last week in which students present projects.
> For more information, visit www.elo.iastate.edu and www.business.iastate.edu/masters/business-analytics.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2015 edition of CIRAS News. You can find the rest of this issue and more of CIRAS News on our website.