The Master of Science in Business Analytics

An innovative program – brand new to the college – providing students with analytical knowledge in an evolving business landscape

Due to increases in the quantity and quality of accessible data, along with improvements in computing technology, the importance of analytics has grown dramatically over the past few years in all sectors. As a result, the demand for graduates with analytics skills has also increased.

The University of Alabama’s Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program focuses on teaching students how to use statistics, operations research/management science, data mining, machine learning, probability, algorithms, and data management in an integrative fashion to better understand, predict, and manage the behavior of systems and processes.

The primary objectives of the program are to:

• Prepare students for in-demand analytics positions in industry and government,
• Teach students the principles of managing data,
• Provide students with hands-on experience in the use of cutting-edge analytics techniques to solve large-scale problems using data from or inspired by real-world problems,
• Teach students software packages and programming languages commonly used for analytics projects including SAS, SQL, Python, R, and Gurobi,
• Teach students how to interpret results, communicate results effectively, and utilize tools that promote reproducibility, 
• Educate students on the landscape of the Analytics community and the various opportunities for continued skill development throughout their career.

Program Info

The program follows a cohort model, where groups of students are admitted and take all classes together. Using this model allows us to supplement instruction with large projects that span multiple classes and demonstrate the end-to-end analytics workflow. In addition, the University of Alabama’s MSBA program:

• Was developed using input from analytics professionals working for companies including Procter & Gamble, Belk,  Walmart Stores, Inc., NBA, ESPN, TruMedia Networks, Neiman Marcus, and Allstate,
• Is taught by an interdisciplinary faculty team with expertise spanning Statistics, Information Systems, and Operations Research, and
• Includes two 3-hour seminars with content that varies to accommodate changes in analytics practice.

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