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As businesses strive to compete in their relevant industries amongst numerous competitors, the need to outperform them through modeling and implementation of unique business ideas, has become crucial for its survival. The role of a business analyst hence becomes key, as they become involved in determining business capabilities and establishing new opportunities to better current procedures and overall efficiency in business operations. How does one determine what is relevant in the industry and will appeal to the executives in implementing certain procedures. How does one adapt to the changes in the market to formulate ideas that will keep the business competitive during rough times? To answer these puzzling questions, the Business Career Development Committee (BizCare) invited NUS BBA Alumni, Asritha Vaddadi and Lester Sim, Final-Year student Brenda Tang, and Professor Xiong Peng from the Department of Analytics & Operations, further elaborating on their journey here as students and what to expect when deciding to explore Business Analytics as a future career pathway.
Professor Xiong Peng’s sharing revolved around highlighting the appeal towards taking Business Analytics as a specialization, with the portrayal of the most in-demand jobs in the industry being related to business analytics, along with the high remuneration they receive for their efforts in introducing new business solutions to specific problems. He shared the significance of the skills in Business Analytics, even in the teaching industry, identifying popular second specializations that students take along with BA, being Finance followed by Marketing, as well as identifying potential modules that students should take as the industry evolves, specifically being those relating to optimization and usage of consultation tools to provide analytical solutions for modern business problems.
All 3 of the other guest speakers shared the importance of branching out from the educational stigma of just studying and improving CAP, through involvement in CCA’s, mentorship programs, networking sessions, and taking on extra certifications available on LinkedIn to bolster individual portfolios, standing out from those rivaling students. The guest speakers all shared the various career opportunities they were fortunate enough to explore, taking on internships at Amazon, Microsoft, and Singapore Airlines, completing roles as BA & Strategy, AI specialist and Analytics Consulting Interns.
Asritha and Lester stressed on the need to be a voracious learner, capitalizing through involvement in multiple case competitions and hackathons early on in student life as it would help students apply the qualitative knowledge they learn in classes, into technical knowledge that they can apply when entering their subsequent internships and full-time companies. Lester emphasized that one’s portfolio can better be refined by developing web apps or similar visual aids in order to appeal to recruiters’ interests. Brenda mentioned her initial dislike for the core python mod that students have to take (DAO2702), and the efforts undertaken by her to tackle that procrastination, along with how overcoming these setbacks and challenges helped her develop a newfound admiration for problem solving, hence motivating her to take upon BA as a specialization. Another key takeaway from this sharing was that module planning is important, serving as a guideline for students to have a clear indication on what field specifically interests them, whether it be more qualitative or quantitative.
Post-Panel Opinions from the Audience
“I always thought modules in BA to be very code heavy, but after today's panel, I learned that through the different opportunities that NUS provides with the various mods available, there might be topics that I personally might feel I want to explore in the future. The advice offered by the speakers today was very much practical and something I could relate to. Their encouragement to partake in hackathons and bolster my individual skill sets through internship opportunities gives me a better indication of what I should be looking forward to doing in the upcoming summer holidays.”
~ Ray, Y2 BBA