Coding Becoming a Priority for Columbia Business School MBAs
Like every other elite business school worth its salt, Columbia Business School (CBS) has seen a huge surge in student interest in programming and analytics courses.
It started three years ago when Costis Maglaras, the chair of the Decision, Risk & Operations division of CBS, oversaw development of a new analytics curriculum with the goal to ensure that students were being trained in quantitative, data-driven decision-making.
Maglaras couldn’t help but notice a major gap: There were few courses in computer programming, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
He took it upon himself to help develop a series of MBA-level programming that included analytics-focused classes to give MBA students the digital tools they needed to become tech-savvy managers. In tandem with Maglaras’ efforts, the student-run Technology Business Group helped develop courses around the programming languages of SQL and Python.
Now more than a dozen elective programming courses have been launched across CBS, helping MBA graduates land management positions at Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. And the popularity of these courses is only growing.
“Taking those classes gave me a lot of confidence for my interviews,” says Neha Bansal, MBA ’18. She credits the new curriculum for helping her land a job at Google as a product manager due in small part to her Python expertise.
Bansal is far from the only student who’s reaped the benefits. There are now more than 300 MBA students at CBS who have signed up to learn Python—a highly marketable skill. The only problem: The classes have now become almost too popular.
More than a dozen coding language programs have recently launched for business school students at CBS, thanks in part to the student-run Technology Business Group.
The division hired additional faculty and to figure out how to integrate the new analytics programming more intricately into the overall curriculum. Across the board, CBS is seeing more MBA students interested in programming because, simply put, it’s what employers want.
For example, Citigroup recently announced it would train all incoming analysts in Python. Goldman Sachs has asked its traders to learn how to code. According to a recent Financial Times survey, “understanding digital impact on business” is one of the most important skills for an MBA and one of the most difficult skills to recruit.
“The reality is we’re living in a very data-centric world, and whether we like it or not it’s going to be an important factor in any decision-making process down the road,” Hardeep Johar, of the CBS Engineering School, says. “We need people to be savvy about how to use data analytics and artificial intelligence on all the important decisions of today.”
To read the full article and all about what Columbia Business School is doing to help prepare MBA students to embrace data analytics, visit the CBS website.
This article has been edited and republished from Clear Admit.
Cornell Study Reveals Curious Fashion Findings, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week, including curious new findings from a recent Cornell study.
How Disclosing Sponsored Content Affects Consumer Trust in Bloggers – Johnson Business Feed
Cornell University SC Johnson Graduate School of Management Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations Sunita Sah, along with Georgetown’s Prashant Malaviya and Debora Thompson, recently co-authored new research that examines how “consumers react to disclosures of sponsorship from fashion bloggers.”
In a recent release from the Johnson Business Feed, professor Sah writes, “In contrast to much of the previous research on conflict of interest disclosures, we found that in the context-rich setting of online blogs, conflict of interest disclosures have the unanticipated consequence of increasing, rather than decreasing, consumer trust in the blogger and their expertise.”
Sah explains how the blogosphere could more effectively handle disclosures:
“If the purpose is to protect consumers by assuming they will make the necessary adjustments to the advice they receive, it’s crucial that we consider the impact of processing by readers and thoroughly understand any unintended consequences that may occur. We may just have to think harder for solutions other than disclosure to manage conflicts of interest.”
You can find more about the Cornell study here.
Round-the-Clock Work Emails Impact Health, Relationships – Lehigh College of Business and Economics Blog
New research co-authored by Lehigh University College of Business and Economics Associate Professor of Management Liuba Belkin, Virginia Tech’s William Becker, Colorado State’s Samantha A. Conroy, and Virginia Tech doctoral student Sarah Tuskey finds that “personal relationships and home life suffer for those tied to their work emails round-the-clock.”
Liuba Belkin, Ph.D., Lehigh Associate Professor of Management
According to the Lehigh College of Business and Economics Blog, the study is the first to “test the relationship between organizational expectations to monitor work-related electronic communication during non-work hours and the health and relationship satisfaction of employees and their significant others.”
Belkin notes that round-the-clock work emails are “an insidious stressor that not only increase employee anxiety, decrease their relationship satisfaction and have detrimental effects on employee health, but also that they negatively affect partner (significant other) health and marital satisfaction perceptions.”
Belkin recommends that organizations “set off-hour email windows and limit use of electronic communications outside of those windows or set up email schedules when various employees are available to respond.”
The researchers presented “Killing Me Softly: Electronic Communications Monitoring and Employee and Spouse Well-Being” at the Academy of Management annual meeting in Chicago earlier this month and is due for publication in the Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings.
You can read the full article here.
Professor Applies Principles of Operations Management to New Areas – Rutgers Business News
The Rutgers Business School recently published a profile of Supply Chain Management Department Chair and Associate Professor Lian Qi, whose research “goes beyond the traditional supply chain domain [to explore] new and relevant [topics] related to areas of high impact.”
According to the profile, highlighted in a recent release from Rutgers Business News, Professor Qi’s research “seeks to apply operations management principles and techniques to resolve customer service issues in … healthcare service and the service operations for electric vehicles.”
In the piece, Professor Qi explains why he opted to pursue a career in academia:
“My father is a professor who has inspired my various interests since I was a child. The second reason is that after I worked as a supply chain management consultant at SAP, I wanted to study more theoretical concepts in this area. I also love to work with students. This makes me feel that I can really help many people not just help a department within a company.”
YOu can read the full interview of Qi here.
Are Companies Getting Big Data Wrong? – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Columbia Business School Researchers Argue Future of Big Data Lies in Its Ability to Assess Consumers’ Mindset in Real Time – Columbia Business School News
Columbia Business School professors Sandra Matz and Oded Netzer recently published a new discussion paper in the Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences in which they “address the challenges and opportunities of using big data to benefit both business and consumers based on psychological profiles drawn from information posted on personal websites and discussion forums, and language used on Facebook and Twitter.”
Netzer writes, “Big data usage is quickly evolving. With technological advances in the collection, storage and analysis of large amounts of data, businesses can now gain valid insights on millions of consumers as they go about their daily lives.”
Matz adds, “One benefit of psychological profiling is that the pre-selection of ads based on psychological needs can alleviate the problem of choice overload. It can even help target highly neurotic individuals who display early signs of depression with ads that guide them to self-help pages or offer professional advice.”
You can read the full article here.
When Students Come First – BizEd
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, upwards of 30 percent of freshman in higher-education in the United States are the first members of their family to do so. However, there is also a direct correlation to dropout rates: first-gen students have a dropout rate that is four times that of non-first generation students. The research also found that only 11 percent of the first-gen students manage to secure a Bachelor’s degree within six years.
The statistics find that the reason for the dropout rates has less to do with personal decisions, and more with the “lack the financial, social, and emotional support they need to navigate college successfully,” says BizEd writer Tricia Bisoux. Several schools, including the Rutgers Business School in Newark and New Brunswick, have altered the way they approach its first generation students.
“At Rutgers Business School (RBS) at Rutgers University in New Jersey, the key to supporting first-generation students is a suite of programs called RBS-PLUS (Pathways Leading to Undergraduate Success), launched in 2013. Delivered through the business school’s office of diversity, RBS-PLUS doesn’t just support its current first-generation and low-income undergraduates. It also reaches out to high school students to offer guidance just as they’re beginning their college preparation.”
You can find out more about the program here.
Facebook Is an ‘Extraordinary Failure in Leadership,’ NYU’s Galloway Says – Bloomberg
NYU Stern Marketing Professor Scott Galloway recently stopped by the Bloomberg television studios to talk about the ever-tumultuous Facebook galaxy, dishing out some heavy criticism of Mark Zuckerberg and the tech-giant company as a whole. Watch his interview with the Bloomberg panel here.
From New York To London, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
In Ambitious Capstone Project, Stevens Senior Looks Under the Hood of Securitized Auto Loans – Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business News
The Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business recently profiled Austin McDonnell, a 2018 graduate whose Senior Design capstone project examined the “the quality of the individual assets comprising securitized auto loans” in order to “figure out what individual loans look like, what their default rate is, and how likely those deals are to experience losses.”
McDonnell’s next stop is Imperial College London’s Master’s Program in Finance, where he believes the Stevens coursework really set him up to succeed. “The amount of work, and the breadth of the coursework, in the Quantitative Finance program prepares you to find that starting point on huge projects that seem impossible.”
McDonnell (’18), outside the Stevens Hanlon Financial Systems Lab / Photo via stevens.edu
“I’ve always been interested in engineering, mathematics and physics, so I was just looking at the more technical schools,” he said in an interview with his alma mater. “I saw Stevens was a lot more challenging and had more to offer than the other schools I looked at, in terms of pursuing the kind of career I wanted.”
You can read the entire interview with McDonnell here.
CUEED Celebrates Its First Decade with Big Plans for the Future – Rutgers Business School Blog
Rutgers’ Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development commemorated 10 years of nurturing entrepreneurs in an event outside the Black Swan Espresso Shop on Newark’s Halsey Street that was “part celebration, party block party, and part reunion.”
The Center’s Executive Director Lyneir Richardson reflected on the CUEED’s past, present, and future in a rousing speech.
“Our first decade was impactful,” Richardson said. “We worked with 400 entrepreneurs. In the next decade, our goal is to get to 1,000 entrepreneurs. We want to generate more impactful research and expand our programs to outside partners who will license our curriculum. The idea is not only to create a stream of revenue for CUEED but to create more impact and get more visibility for the center.”
CUEED plans to assemble its Business Hub for Creatives Program in Memphis, while “Jacksonville and Richmond have telephoned to find out how they can also replicate CUEED’s programs.”
You can read more about the Rutgers Business School CUEED and the event here.
Now Accepting Alumni and Student Entries for 4th Annual Orange Tank Business Pitch Competition – Whitman School of Business
Syracuse’s Whitman School of Business announced its 4th Annual Orange Tank pitch competition, which is set to take place during the Orange Central 2018 celebration this coming October.
The Orange Tank competition invites “current Whitman students and alumni entrepreneurs [to] submit their business venture for consideration.” Teams will present their business ideas to a panel of judges to the tune of $5,000, $2,000, and $1,000 prizes.
Alumni business applications will be accepted through Friday, August 31 while Student entrepreneurs may submit their application through Friday, September 14.
Orange Tank takes place on October 19th at 1-3 p.m. in Whitman’s Flaum Grand Hall.
Make your reservations via Orange Central and read the full article here.
Coffee Brains, Case Writing, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
This Is Your Brain On Coffee: Beyond Health Benefits, Even the Smell May Fuel Higher Test Scores – Stevens Institute of Technology College of Business Blog
New research published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology finally confirmed your suspicion: yes, your coffee is making you smarter. Well, maybe. Science is tricky and all that.
In the research, officially released earlier this year, Stevens School of Business professor Adriana Madzharov and colleagues from Temple and Baruch found that the scent of coffee helped people perform tasks better and even improved test scores. Interestingly enough, the researchers concluded that the effect of even just smelling coffee could be as beneficial as consuming it.
“It’s not just that the coffee-like scent helped people in our study perform better on analytical tasks, which was already interesting,” Madzharov writes. “But they also thought they would do better, and we demonstrated that this expectation was at least partly responsible for their improved performance. In short, smelling a coffee-like scent, which has no caffeine in it, still has a placebo effect similar to drinking coffee.”
New research reveals that the scent of coffee can help you with daily tasks and tests, even if you do not consume it.
She adds, “This finding also has useful multiple practical implications in business for workplace professionals, architects, building developers, retail space managers and others.”
You can read the full article here.
A Rutgers Team Brings a Professor’s Lesson to Life – Rutgers Business School Blog
Rutgers Business School Professor of Marketing Can (John) Uslay recently took home first place in a recent case-writing competition put together by the University of Michigan’s William Davidson Institute.
Professor Uslay’s entry was based on Roshni Rides, a “rickshaw transportation company created and piloted by a team of Rutgers Business School students,” which won the “$1 million Hult Prize for social entrepreneurship in 2017 after a compelling presentation about how their company could help improve the lives of refugees living in the Orangi Town settlement.
Professor Uslay outlined “the challenges the team faced, specifically their effort to find a price point that would keep the cost of the service affordable and still enable the company to grow.”
You can check out the full interview with Professor Uslay here.
The Business Case for Sustainable Tourism Management of Protected Areas – SC Johnson Business Feed
Tom Olson, a recent Johnson Cornell MBA graduate, recently published an op-ed about the growing need for “developed, emerging, and frontier markets” to develop more sustainable management structures to accommodate increased tourism.
Enter the Tourism and Protected Area Specialist (TAPAS) Group; a subgroup of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) “dedicated to advancing sustainable tourism initiatives in protected areas.”
Olson writes that he was tasked by TAPAS Group to “analyze, develop, and recommend a revenue generation model that would be financially sustainable, align with IUCN’s values, and be accepted by the broader community of sustainable tourism professionals.”
You can read Olson’s full op-ed here.
Columbia Research Identifies Customers At Risk, and More – New York City News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Online Companies Beware: New Columbia Business School Research Reveals That Customers With High Activity May Be At Risk Of Leaving the Company – Columbia Business School Blog
Columbia Business School professors Eva Ascarza and Oded Netzer recently published new research that explores how “customers end their relationships with companies in new and unpredictable ways.”
Professor Ascarza writes, “Companies need to understand the ramifications of this paper, because in the digital age, the landscape on customer retention has changed. Unlike the past when a consumer might have had to physically call to end a relationship with a company, today some customers are leaving without saying goodbye.”
Professor Netzer adds, “When it comes to customer retention levels, the most important thing is acknowledging that, in this new hybrid setting, there are indeed two unique types of customers who are at risk of ending their relationship with a company.”
“If businesses want to continue amassing and retaining loyal customers, they need to identify which customers belong in which bucket and then study their individual behavioral patterns so that they can take the appropriate measures to stop them before they walk out that virtual door.”
You can check out the article and the full study here.
Analytics Career Fair Draws Dozens of Recruiters to Meet Business Students – Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business Blog
The Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business Intelligence & Analytics program recently hosted a networking event in which Bed Bath & Beyond VP of Consumer Analytics Melanie Murphy spoke “with dozens of master’s students about how their analytical insights create value in business.”
Of Stevens’ Biz Intelligence & Analytics program, Murphy writes, “The program is so well balanced, from data, to different types of analytics, to the business intelligence perspective—and the students are incredibly smart.”
She adds, “You can tell, in talking with these students, that they’ve had that experience of getting in front of people and sharing ideas.”
Bed Bath & Beyond VP Melanie Murphy (right), talks with Stevens Business Intelligence & Analytics students / Photo via stevens.edu
According to the article, recruiters from Robert Half, L’Oreal, Jefferies, and UBS, among companies, “attended the event to meet and ask questions of students about their research.”
L’Oreal Assistant VP of Human Resources Information Services Gary Winant “brought in a Stevens team to examine turnover in a particular department, and use predictive tools to recommend solutions.”
He writes, “The students here come ready to work. I met with the students twice and was impressed by their commitment. We came back to them three months later with additional questions and even though the project was over, they took the time to respond in detail.”
You can read the full report from this year’s Business Intelligence & Analytics program here.
Graduate Students Provide a Helping Hand for New Business Owners – Gabelli Connect
Fordham’s recent Entrepreneurial Law Clinic was a joint effort between the Gabelli School of Business and Fordham Law, which “brought together students to work on behalf of … social ventures that seek to create positive change in society and companies founded by low-to-moderate income entrepreneurs who otherwise would be unable to afford an attorney.”
One business the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic supported was ConBody, “a boutique gym where New Yorkers learn a workout regime” its proprietor Coss Marte developed in prison. Marte, who received business training at “Defy Ventures, a non-profit that helps formerly incarcerated individuals start businesses,” got legal counseling from Fordham law students and fundraising advice from Gabelli students.
He writes, “They’re absolutely geniuses. They shot me questions that I never really thought about, and I was like, ‘Oh, I should do that.’ They were really on top of their stuff, and really hungry in helping me.”
You can check out the full piece here.
