Analytics for Business Decision Making Program Info Session | GBC Open House
hi everyone and welcome to the center for business b412 and b422 analytics for business decision making program this postgraduate program is run in both online and offline format my name is dr robin yap and i'll show you a little bit more about what this program is about i am the program coordinator for the analytics programs at george brown colleges center for business so why would you want to take on an analytics post graduate of george brown let me tell you why in a couple of minutes we're also going to talk about some program basics as well as work experience that you're going to have opportunities to take on our industry connections that strengthens our program and continues to embolden and strengthen us every semester the career and job prospects that are available for you as well as of course how you can apply for the programs first off we want to understand what business analytics is and it is important to distinguish it from data science while both processes analyze data to solve business problems the difference between business analytics and data science lies in how data is used in business analytics we are concerned with extracting meaningful insights from and visualizing data to facilitate the decision making process that's what the ultimate goal of our program data science is focused on making sense of raw data using algorithms statistical models and computer programming that's not what we want to do although we will have an opportunity in this program to have an idea of what these various programs look like so that then we are able to speak the language of the technologists who will be working on the data and allow us to facilitate that decision making on our side so to better understand this we want to then make sure that we go to a program that is developed by highly qualified individuals and experts in the field as well as located in environments that not only our close proximity to where the evolving landscape of data is occurring and happening and making waves in the industry as well as the country but also you want to be in an area where the opportunities for networking and job prospects are plentiful and that's where george brown is so you want us to be in this environment wherein our faculty have such significant experience in the industry and we do have that we have very strong connections to our analytics related associations as well as a solid program advisory board that provides us some very important analytics expertise so that our program aligns very well with what the industry need and we constantly evolve and improve and ensure that we are aligned in what is needed out in the field so that our graduates run immediately to workplaces that are ready for their expertise our curriculum has very solid industry input as i've said and exceeds ministry standards we do have a diversity of our student body that allows for a rich engagement in the classroom whether that's online offline or hybrid our program it has two intakes we have intakes in the fall we have intakes in the winter now this is a two semester program and the class sizes on average would be less than 50 and you want it to be that size to be able to have great engagement as well as personalized relationships with the faculty who are teaching the program we also have a program that is cohort based which means if you have any opportunities for ensuring that there is not only a rich conversation but an environment wherein your class links to the other class uh so that then it's a cohesive whole you want it to be in this cohort format and we do understand that there are individuals who may not be able to have a full schedule and therefore have to scale back and be in a part-time format and that is okay uh what needs to be done though is although it is not the way the program is set up there are individuals who have done that it is a discussion that you will have with our business office and so you work with them you also work with our admissions office and then when you are part of the program with our registration and then you'll be all set for any of the special requirements you have regarding your schedules now i'm not going to write the whole um course summaries and learning outcomes on this slide because otherwise will be really long but i did put in the links here so that then you get to know where they're located if you'd like more information around them and all of our course lines are available online you can search george brown program course outlines and you'll be able to see what the content is for each of those classes now our program is set up for b412 and b422 depending on the delivery modality that you're taking what does that mean it means then that if you're an international student you are um required to be in a format wherein uh there are times when you're in the classroom uh there may be times when you're online but for the most part you will be in one of our campuses and and that is part of a ministry requirement immigration requirement as well as opportunities for work so the ability to be in our campus is an important factor of this program if you are domestic though you have the opportunity to take a fully online version of this program which is the 422 it's exactly the same it's just that the delivery modality is all online so that is in place we have intakes for those individuals and the first semester there are you you look at it as six classes in reality there is a seventh one but as you can see from the top first entry it is an intro to analytics which is a very important session to be able to have an understanding of what this whole program is about and then halfway through the semester you take on the applied business communications component of the program so that's in the same semester it's just divided into two um and each of those classes have marks for network grades and the rest of the classes in this format um are all throughout the semester so they would have 15 weeks on them we do have inter sessions halfway through that um and so which essentially is like a reading week um and students don't go to class but they may have assignments they may it's right after midterms for the most part and so or preparation for a midterm so that time is adjusted and not adjusted but i identified for whatever activity the professor may be interested in and adding for you to ensure that you are on top of things it is an intensive program um so do expect that it will be a lot of critical thinking a lot of learning new concepts that you may not be familiar with especially if you're jumping into an environment uh where you're coming from that is um may not be uh a whole combination of technology a little bit of technology a little bit of programming a little bit of a lot of business on it and that whole combination um it's like a boot camp so think about it like a boot camp and then you're very prepared into the rigor that is involved in ensuring that um you be successful in that program the reason why it's set up that way is that we want our students to be well prepared for any type of environment that you're going to be going into after the program and literally be ready on the second day of network so that's why it's set up that way on the second semester of your program a little bit more deeper dive into data mining into um uh web metrics and um decision based on advanced analytics and so forth and there are some prerequisites to getting into this pro and the second semester so you want to be make sure that you are successful in the first semester and if you decide to actually take just part of the classes enough i'm putting it in quote part-time format because the class is set up as a cohort as taking all the classes then you need to be prepared that if the class that you have not taken because you have withdrawn from it or then the second part of that class cannot be taken until you complete the first one because of a prerequisite requirement the second semester also requires you to have a capstone and what capstone does it allows for an opportunity to work out in the field to be able to have a better understanding of what happens in the canadian workplace so our capstone comes from our partners we have partner companies that allow for relationships with our students and some are paid some are unpaid depending on which company is going to be hiring you but it is a part and parcel of this program some of the other program companies are part of what we call um uh within the campus uh there might be labs there and i have a lab that i take on um individuals as well and they can use that for their capstone so there are opportunities inside the school outside the school and then outside the schools a whole slew of other organizations that you can go to you do need to uh recognize that um some of them may be paid some of them may be updated but ultimately at the end of the day you get that opportunity they can put in a resume which is always a good thing the employers can be smes which is small to medium-sized enterprises or very large organizations so at the end of the day you can take on a small company large company and you will have opportunities to learn how it works in this environment now we do have very strong connections in the industry so you we do have a program advisory council our committee and what that is is that it's a group of a dozen or so um experts in the field and and senior leaders and executives and they come together uh regularly throughout the year and even before this program started so that then they can hash out every little detail and they do look at every single program outcome as well as course outlines as well as our case studies and even sometimes a couple of them look at every single exam that happens what every week looks like it's a very rigorous process because they're putting their name as well as their stamp of approval in the program that then gets released and be available for you so know that your program that you take on um is not just a couple of us putting it together but it's actual a whole industry of experts have put their minds together to actually build this for you and it's constantly evolving i meet with them regularly to ensure that whatever it is that we're teaching actually aligns to what's happening out in the world so we have very solid relationship with sas for example so um that is something that you will become very familiar with and this uh in this program we are part of the iiba uh certification as well as acsbcs our certification bodies that allow additional credibility and through the accreditation that they provide we are a teeth tier 3 sas accredited program which allows you then to get this nice badge uh to be that you can put on your resume and even on your linkedin profile which is a well recognized badge um for uh companies that take analytics related jobs so they know what that is there's many opportunities for networking when you are in our program and part of being successful in the workplace canada is to have a very solid capability competency uh in in networking so you will become very comfortable in doing that and you can do it in a variety of ways by being active in student associations we do have an analytics club which comprises of an executive board a couple of folks from across the college not just the center for business we have members from our health informatics program for example so they use analytics for healthcare and then we have technology people who very much are into programming but they use analytics in there as well and by combining all these individuals into an analytics club that allows for this cross-merging of ideas and and conversations that it showcases every or regularly through our speaker series so the analytics club puts out a speaker series that is available for everybody and it's even available online you will be able to see it there's a link here that you can check to see what's been discussed in the past and you get to learn um we even have alumni that come back and speak to our students to get their opinion on how they have now applied what they have learned in the program out in the field and we do i do encourage you to join the analytics club uh prior to jumping into the program just so you get a feel of of the vibrancy of the student body and you know they post their their um activities and all the events that happen they have job posts in there so you know go at it go join it and we'll approve you coming in we also have an analytics hub so there's two sets of analytics type group on linkedin so all of the students are recommended to join the analytics club the analytics hub allows for this transition once you have graduated to connect now to the field and a lot of our experts a lot of our pac members our program advisory committee members are actually part of the hub so they answer questions all of that stuff happens on that side another way to network is to join competition teams and we constantly win we have been very good at win and we just won recently um this year at the sas competition so sas provides um this international competition where we have schools from mexico from canada from the us they all compete and we win and it's great because it allows to not just showcase the value of the education that we provide but also the quality of the students that are in our programs and one of the competition is around safe roads so what that is is you got tons and tons of data around the roads traffic pedestrian all of the road related data in toronto for example and then all the competition teams will then develop solutions recommendations and suggestions through a series of q and a and they have their own presentations so they enhance their presentation skills and also be able to uh showcase that to a panel of really good judges and experts and people out in the in the field and then um a lot of the recommendations have been taken on the other opportunity is to join the enactus team enactus is worldwide it is amazing it's an opportunity to uh be connected to social justice enterprises and so if you're interested in that type of activity there is an opportunity for you to participate and be able to then go out there and make a difference out in the world and our again our school has been winning very large funding for those teams to be able to then share with their social enterprise activities so that's good the other activities are around we have a lab and as you can see in the photo it's me and a robot it's one of the ten robots that i have and it's called the human technology lab or humanity technology lab we call it homology and it's a research lab and what that does is we bring in robots to environments where we that may not be um recognize the value of it and be able to share our expertise and our understanding and our and also be able to research how humans behave in environments where there's technology around them so it's quite a fun a way to put your analytics hat on in a an emerging workplace wherein robots become part of your uh they become your co-workers so that's that's an interesting opportunity there as well so there's many opportunities for networking um as well as learning new things that may not be covered in class that creates a much more holistic experience for you as a student so i always suggest participating in these opportunities now for the career and job placements that you would see there's quite a bit of them right job prospects i should say so you will see potential employment roles around business intelligence data analysts uh there are some quantitative analysts that are out there marketing operations and it can be in a variety of industries from transportation to healthcare to human resources to marketing and advertising and so forth one of the things that i've seen is that the government of canada actually tracks the number of potential jobs that are happening and an analytics related job is set to increase 27 the largest percentage in any of the job uh categories uh in the country until 2028 so you you are on track to uh be able to find jobs that are available out there for you and this website actually identifies that there's at least 18 000 jobs that are available right now for you so check it out then you can just google that actually just google job bank canada and then um analytics jobs and then it'll show you what's out there so it's very exciting for us to see that now how do you apply this is hopefully exciting for you and um hopefully i got to introduce you to a little bit more about what this program is about uh if you're a domestic uh student you go to ocass and the link is right here ontariocolleges.ca if you are an international student um there is a link on our website uh in the b412 or b42 b412 program that says international students click on that and i'll get you to the appropriate link if you have any questions at any given time our business office will be able to answer most of your questions as well as our admissions office whether there's international or domestic admissions um again if you want to search online additional information that i may not have covered today um you can do that fairly simply by typing george brown and the b412 if you're international or domestic and b422 if you're a domestic so that's the online one right the b422 um and my email address is here as well as my academic director who i report to is here as well and we are happy to provide you any direction that you we may not have um specific answers especially if your question is around tuition fee or um scheduling any of those things i can't answer but i can direct you to wherever where you need to go if you at any given time get lost in the application process so just let me know and that is it for me so thank you so much have a great day and i look forward to seeing you in our hallways virtual or otherwise have a great day bye
2022-04-09 11:38
