This week, Texas MS Programs is catching up with Vishwa Bhuta, a 2017 alumni of our Master of Science in Business Analytics Program. Alumni spotlights give insight into where our graduates go after they finish #MasteringMcCombs and we hear some advice to current students on how to leverage their degrees!
Vishwa Bhuta
Merkle Inc
Senior Data Analyst
What was your journey to the MS in Business Analytics degree?
I’m a proud wahoo who graduated from the University of Virginia in 2015, having studied business and psychology. After college, I worked in digital marketing and quickly found that I wanted to be able to conduct a deeper level of analysis, and I needed the hard skills to do so. Therefore I found myself in the MSBA program at McCombs, which was one of the few data analytics programs that managed to balance business concepts with solid technical foundations. To me, the MSBA had some of the important teachings from an MBA mixed with those from a stats degree.
What is the most valuable skill or lesson you learned while in your MS program (either inside or outside of the classroom)?
Data is ALWAYS messier than you want it to be. Deal with that sad fact and embrace data cleaning.
What are some highlights of your career since graduating from your MS program?
I was able to completely change the way my client sets goals, transitioning from a somewhat arbitrary goal to a goal driven by consumer LTVs. I set up a test that showed the incremental lift of our marketing dollars to the business. I’ve also been able to mentor a junior member of my team who is attempting to learn python; this is particularly exciting because I didn’t know any python before MSBA, so I give the program a lot of credit for my progress.
Who was your favorite MS Professor or what was your favorite MS Course?
Advanced Predictive Modeling with Joydeep Ghosh
What are the biggest challenges you have faced since completing your MS degree?
One big challenge is one that we are warned about and prepped for by MSBA: telling the data story to non-technical people. It has been very hard to find the balance because clients want to know what and how you’re doing the analysis but they don’t want to feel lost. The other challenge has been – like I said – dealing with very messy data. You are somewhat prepped for this by the capstone, but even then, the companies did their best to provide clean data.
What should future graduates be considering as they begin their careers?
You likely won’t get to apply the “sexy” data science techniques right away (if ever, depending on your path), so while it’s important to focus on understanding those in school, it’s equally important to master skills like data cleaning, SQL, data visualization, etc., because you’ll need to showcase those skills to get to the “cooler” stuff.
We love hearing from our graduates on how they are doing, so if you are a #TXMS grad and would like to share your Alumni story, please contact us at cayce.canipe@mccombs.utexas.edu. To learn more about any of our Texas MS Programs, browse our Admissions Blog and link to our main pages.