WELCOME TO THE NEW MSA CLASS OF 2015

The Master of Science in Analytics (MSA) program at LSU welcomed its new class of 2015 on June 5, 2014.

The class has 20 students who will be participating in a 12-month full-time degree program that emphasizes the use of business analytics, business intelligence, and information technology for problem solving and decision making.

 

The MSA students learn to use state-of-the-art analytics tools to improve the accuracy and timeliness of business decisions.  Throughout the year, the students will be exposed to a variety of topics regarding the field of analytics and the MSA curriculum emphasizes the use of advanced tools to analyze large real-world data sets.

LSU's MSA Program featured in BI Software Insight among Top Big Data and Analytics Degree Programs

The Master of Science in Analytics program at LSU was featured in the online hub BI Software Insight.  The program was listed among the top schools for Big Data and Analytics Degree Programs. 

 

Article - BI Software Insight

 

This is an exciting time for the field of analytics and LSU has a top notched program that is intensive, dynamic, and well respected within the industry.  Our students are gaining practical knowledge through the combination of classroom instruction and team based projects.  The graduates from this program will be able to immediately have an economic impact for companies with big data needs and issues.

  

CenturyLink Practicum Presentation

Three students from the MSA class of 2013-2014 worked together on their practicum project for CenturyLink.  They presented their findings to upper management at the end of April.  The scope of their practicum revolved around increasing the effectiveness of the "save" desk.  Their objective was to reduce losses from customer churn.  The students worked throughout the 2 semesters on cleaning and organizing their data set, preparing several models for analysis and producing viable options to help the company increase its customer retention.

CENTURYLINK- "I was very impressed with the students understanding of the concepts and their ability to work on project teams"

 

 

MSA - BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD Practicum Presentation

BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD - Practicum Presentation

 

This practicum presentation involving healthcare analytics was designed to identify high cost providers and the variables associated with high health care costs.  The 3 students worked as a team becoming familiar with the medical terminology and coding, mining the data for relevant pieces of information and identifying ways to implement cost saving opportunities.

 

The response to the presentation by the management team of Blue Cross Blue Shield was, "Excellent job....the team identified potential variations in care with appropriate rigor and assumptions."

 

 

 

 

ASSOCIATED GROCERS PRACTICUM PRESENTATION

The 2 students who worked with Associated Grocers for their practicum project presented a summary analysis of their findings on April 24, 2014 to several members of the AG Executive team.  This team based project evolved over the course of 2 semesters involving clarification of the business problem, cleaning and organizing the data, and coming up with a viable solution to help improve Associated Grocer's freight charge discount policy.

A top member of the Associated Grocer team said, "The quality of work was excellent.  The presentation hit on several key issues that directly affect our business."  The culmination of the student's analysis may possibly lead to a new freight charge policy being implemented soon.

 

 

MSA - ALL STAR AUTOMOTIVE Practicum Presentation

During the third week of April, a group of 3 students within the MSA program at LSU presented their final practicum projects to the corporate representatives of the All Star Automotive Group.

The practicum project is team-based in which the students work with leading organizations to solve real analytical problems.  The teams work throughout the semester to understand the business problem, clean the database given to them, analyze the data and present a recommendation or solution to the company for implementation.

ALL STAR AUTOMOTIVE - The students in this group worked with members of the All Star Group to reduce churn of their maintenance customers. 

"Very detailed and excellent analysis - Great Job!" commented one representative of the company.

 


All Star Automotive executives review recommendations



Master of Science in Analytics - Career Network Day

CORPORATE REPRESENTATIVES VISIT MSA STUDENTS

Professional networking and exposure to career opportunities are an essential part of the MSA program at Louisiana State University. Several employers visited LSU's campus on Friday, March 21st with the sole purpose of describing analytics use within their corporation and to interview our students for potential job openings.  The following companies had representatives present:

TATA Consultancy Services, CenturyLink, Disney & Pentaho.

We will continue to work with interested employers in order to provide the students within the Masters of Science in Analytics program exposure to exciting career opportunities that await them upon graduation.





Seth Bata and Paul Moczynski - Disney

Daniel Bechtel and Keith Abraben - Pentaho





CenturyLink- Bill Bradley &
Chris Parker

Ajay Bhargava - TATA Consutancy Services
 



Corporate representatives speak to the MSA students about career opportunities

Several companies (local and out of state) came to Louisiana State University on Friday, February 21st to speak with the students in the Master of Science in Analytics program.  The representatives from each company presented information about how their corporation uses the field of analytics and their current recruiting efforts.  They described various projects that their analysts work on and how this information is used to help their company become more profitable.  The students were invited to interview with several of the companies after the discussions.  It was an exciting and beneficial day for both the students and the companies.  It clearly demonstrated the need for analytics in the workplace and the ability for these students to satisfy that demand.



• InterWorks
• TEI Software Development 
• Amedisys
• Starmount Life Insurance
• Entergy Systems

SAS Certifications achieved

The ISDS department would like to acknowledge the following students in the Masters of Science in Analytics program at Louisiana State University for obtaining the certifications listed below:

SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9:  This certification is designed for programmers, analysts, data managers, or anyone writing SAS programs to access and manage data to perform queries and analyses. To become certified one must successfully complete an exam covering topics such as accessing and managing data, creating data structures, generating reports and handling errors.

Rachel Bradley, Jansey Comeaux, Charles Cruthirds, Adam Daunis , Jaya Dhillon, Patrick Fleniken, Katie Fontenot, Zach Gorman, Ross Hartfield , David Hillsman, Mary Hunter,  Nick Joslyn , Korbin Law,  JiHoon Lee,  Miao Liu,  Kristin Marceaux, Jon McCarble , Clayton McGee, Ram Nimmakayala, Lucas Oglesby, Saumitra Sharma, Krishna Sishtla, Sean Swanner, Michael Treadwell, Michael Waldmeier

(This is the entire MSA class of 2014)

 

SAS Certified Advanced Programmer for SAS 9:  This certification represents exceptional SAS programmers who demonstrate a high level of proficiency in SAS programming expertise.  To become certified one must successfully complete an exam covering topics on accessing data using SQL, Marco processing and advanced programming techniques.

Saumitra Sharma, Krishna Sishtla

 

SAS Certified Statistical Business Analyst Using SAS 9:  Regression and Modeling:  This certification is designed for SAS professionals who use SAS/STAT software to conduct and interpret complex statistical data analysis.  To become certified one must successfully complete an exam covering topics such as linear and logistic regression, preparing inputs for predictive model performance and ANOVA.

Jaya Dhillon, Krishna Sishtla, Jansey Comeaux