Coming from an engineering background, I was looking for a degree that would bridge the gap between the engineering and business world. The MS in Decision Sciences was a perfect fit, allowing me to diversify my skills and move ahead in my career.
Trevor Daly
MS in Decision Sciences graduate
Decision sciences uses data to find solutions to real-life business problems. When I registered for my classes, I’d never taken a statistics class. I thought data analysis was just a core requirement to get out of the way. I realized how much I enjoy statistical analysis after working fourteen hours straight on a case and feeling completely satisfied with the way I’d spent my weekend. Before that first semester, nobody had told me statistics is, at its core, investigative. I love it! Statistical analysis doesn’t happen in a vacuum – when I graduate, I want a job where I analyze data and turn my analysis into concrete business recommendations.
Eliza Klinger
MS in Decision Sciences student
Number crunching, a staple for decades in the quantifiable domains of engineering and finance, has spread in recent years into marketing and sales. Companies can now model and optimize operations, and can calculate the return on investment on everything from corporate jets to Super Bowl ads. These successes have led to the next math project: the worker.
Business Week, March 12, 2009
Data Mining Moves to Human Resources
From fledglings like Inform to tech powerhouses such as IBM, companies are hitching mathematics to business in ways that would have seemed fanciful even a few years ago.
Business Week, January 23, 2006
Math Will Rock your World
The rising stature of statisticians…is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data. 'We’re rapidly entering a world where everything can be monitored and measured,’ said Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Digital Business. ‘But the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data.’
The New York Times, August 6, 2009
For Today’s Graduates, Just One Word: Statistics
The analytics branch [of IBM], launched in April, will use more than 4,000 consultants and a growing arsenal of software to help companies better understand their swelling piles of data, focusing on complex problems like supply chain management, fraud detection and financial risk assessment. Predictive analytics, like those offered by SPSS, find leading indicators that can allow data mining to forecast future trends and help companies prepare for them.
Forbes, July 28, 2009
IBM Buys a Profitable Prophet