Program:

Master of Science in Business Analytics

Undergraduate University and Major: Brigham Young University – Idaho: Applied Mathematics

Graduating Class: Class of 2020

About Chris: I grew up in rural Idaho just outside of Yellowstone. I love being outdoors hiking, skiing, biking or relaxing in a hammock. After undergrad, I took a job at Walmart working in supply chain. During that time, I taught myself SQL and Tableau to be more efficient in my job and bring better insights to the team. This is where my interest in advanced analytics grew.

Proudest accomplishment:

My proudest accomplishment is my family. Starting a career as a newlywed was rough. Leaving work to pursue graduate studies after having a son was even more challenging. However, my family has been the most rewarding part of my life and they are my greatest motivation.

Why did you choose the MSBA Program?

There are three main reasons why I chose the MSBA at McCombs. First, I wanted to complete my graduate studies in under 2 years time. Second, it needed to be a highly reputable program for its curriculum and placement. Third, it was essential that the classes combined my mathematics education with my business experience, giving me the necessary tools and understanding to have an immediate impact in my career. UT’s MSBA Program checks all of these boxes.

What have you enjoyed so far this year and what do you look forward to for the future?

I have loved experiencing Austin and being part of the Longhorn family. It has been great to make friends and establish a diverse network with my peers. One of my favorite classes was Text Analytics where I was able to scrape online data, clean it up, and make machine learning models to find insights from raw user content. I look forward to continuing my education on the job working on data science challenges while representing the MSBA brand.