Dear Friends,

As we settle into the first quarter of the year, here at the Fox MSBA, as in the rest of the world, we are still dealing with COVID-19, the effects of the pandemic, and the challenges it poses. However, I am proud of the resilience our Fox Analytics community has continued to show. We returned to campus in-person this academic year for almost entirely in-person learning, and things are almost back to normal.  

In the fall, we hosted several guest speaker events including workshops led by industry experts helping students see how skills such as Python and Tableau are applied in workplace settings, a career panel, an alumni panel and virtual coffee meetings. The annual Data Science Conference, co-organized by the Temple Data Science Institute at the Fox School and Wells Fargo Global Equity, brought together the academic community from renowned institutions and quantitative investors. Researchers shed light on research and areas for collaboration and on ways to use data to support improved decision making.

As companies continue to use data to understand and predict consumer behavior, improve business decision making and stay ahead in the digital revolution, jobs in analytics remain in strong demand. During the pandemic, we took the time to examine the curriculum and we still find positive differentiation value in our emphasis on training translators and on providing access to unique classes like Decision Models: From Data to Profit. The market seems to agree and some of our full-time students have gone to companies such as Amazon, SAP, Boeing, Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, Septa, GlaxoSmithKline, Facebook, BlackRock and Dell to name a few.

We can all hope that omicron is the point at which COVID-19 becomes endemic and begins a return to normalcy.  At the Fox School, we have two MS programs in Analytics: MS Business Analytics and MS Statistics and Data Science.  Both sets of graduates are up to date with their respective market trends, domain knowledge, analytical and programming skills, and their futures look bright as the pandemic hopefully recedes across the world. I hope that all of you have weathered the challenges of the past year and that you are also seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.  

Sincerely,

Eric Eisenstein

Academic Director, MS in Business Analytics