Section C – Advice on how to write your paper
Spring 2024 – MSBA 260 Individual Applied Project/Presentation
First, what is the purpose of this assignment?
· I want you to link this course to your own interests. Please take the time now to explore opportunities you may have to land a job, learn about a field that interests you, where you may want to work, what you want to accomplish in your personal/professional life, what impact you want to have in the world, etc.
· Remember, I can easily assign you a topic. However, I am not sure you will get the most out of the experience if we go that route. So, please take some time to think about your topic so that it is interesting and motivating.
How to find someone to interview?
· Current job
· Previous job
· Internship
· LinkedIn
· Social media
· Pacific alumni
· Friends
· Family
· Who else do you know that you can ask for help?
EXAMPLE – Just to help you get started.
This shows you a simplified version of what you will turn in to me in May.
MSBA 260 Spring 2024
NAME: Chris Sablynski
1) What industry are you interested in? Why? What are your career goals and how will you apply what you are learning in this course into your career goals?
I am interested in people analytics. I am also interested in higher education. Thus, for this project, I would like to learn more about how California high school students choose a college or university. That is, what are the factors that led a student to choose University of the Pacific over say, Saint Mary’s College, U of San Francisco, or Santa Clara? From there, I wonder what makes for a successful Pacific student? High GPA? Job placement? Satisfaction with their experience in college?
2) Find and summarize three (3) peer-reviewed articles related to the use of big data in the industry you are interested in.
Article 1:
Article 2:
Article 3:
3) Please find a manager who currently works in the industry you chose above. This will be the person you will base this paper on. Please provide the person’s phone and email address. Thank you.
For this project, I interviewed President Chris Callahan at Pacific. (I didn’t but this is how you would write it)
4) Choose one (1) project this manager is working on. What are the objectives?
(Nothing proprietary or secret, of course!). You can make it general. For example, grow market share. Launch new product? Project? Etc.
President Callahan shared his vision of the university including goals for enrolling new students. One of the first projects he shared was that of _____ (fill in what you talk about). New students in California, transfer students in California, international students, students in other states. I brought up that we used to have a lot of students from Utah, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii. Do we have any data that would help us understand why there are fewer?
5) What types of information/data are relevant for this project? What are the questions they are seeking to answer? What is the short term and long-term goal?
** THIS SECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PAPER * *
This project requires a variety of self-report data from students (primary data directly from students – online survey/focus groups, information from high schools – admin, counselors, teachers, PTA, parent perceptions, high school student perceptions, geographical data, etc. For example, we may look to compare financial aid information, student high school location, and xxxxxx (this would keep going…)
(FILL IN AS MUCH AS NEEDED HERE)
6) What advice does the manager have for a current graduate student in business analytics? Why?
(Again, this is not real, just an example….) President Callahan continued to focus on the university being in a competitive landscape. Students have a lot of choices as to where to attend college. There are other universities creating programs on high school campuses. Future administrators in this area should be able to learn the variables needed to recruit new students. In addition, the information must be useful for key decision makers. Thus, future administrators in higher education need to know what factors contribute to students interests in combination with parents, friends, etc. The need to create individual dashboards for each prospective high school in California would be a great first start…. (CONTINUE WITH WHAT THE PERSON SAYS TO YOU…)
7) Per the person you interview, what trends should we be aware of in this industry? Why?
The overall demographics in the U.S. suggest an overall decline in high school students. That is, the actual number of students graduating high school is decreasing.
(Again, this is just a sample. You should write quite a bit here. )
8) Please list the name and contact information of the person you did this project with. Name: _______ Email: _________ Phone: ___________
9) Please prepare a 5–10-minute (maximum) video recording of your presentation.
“Chris! What about the format of the paper?
· 12-point font, double-spaced
· ½ inch margins
· Arial/Avenir/Times New Roman /Helvetica are usually the easiest to read.
Overall, most papers are about 10 pages in length.
I hope this helps!