In a recent press release, MIT Sloan in collaboration with the MIT Operations Research Center unveiled its new Master of Business Analytics (M.B.An.) degree—a graduate program to compliment its undergraduate and doctoral offerings—slated to begin as part of the fall 2016 semester. The M.B.An. is intended to prepare students to apply “the tools of modern data science to solve problems in business and society.”
The press release cites a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, which declares “the U.S. will experience a shortage of 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers and analysts capable of harvesting actionable insights from big data by 2018.”
The press release quotes MIT Sloan Professor and co-director of the MIT Operations Research Center Dimitris Bertsimas:
“Companies from IBM to Dell to Amazon to Google are collectively investing billions of dollars in data collection to build models that help them make better, more informed decisions.” MIT Sloan Dean David Schmittlein adds, “In the era of big data, the demand for skilled practitioners who understand how to mine and analyze the vast amount of digital data that’s being created is a well-known challenge.”
The M.B.An. is a full-time program that spans three semesters over the course of fall, spring, and a 10-week summer capstone. MIT Sloan Professor John Hauser spoke highly of how the capstone reflects the school’s dedication to “action learning.” Students use their capstone to explore a real data science problem in small groups onsite at a domestic or international company and then extensively report their findings. Hauser comments: “It gives students an opportunity to get out in the field—with a lot of faculty mentoring and support—and apply the very deep technical knowledge they’ve learned in the classroom to solve a real world challenge.”
The press release notes that the M.B.An. “is tailored for recent college graduates who plan to pursue a career in the data science industry, as well as those seeking a career change, especially engineers, mathematicians, physicists, computer programmers, and other high-tech professionals.”