Saunders College of Business Current Student/Alumni Panel (Incoming Graduate Student Webinar Series)

[Music] all right welcome everyone thanks for jumping on um so this is our second um session within the the admitted graduate student webinar series um so today we have five um current students or alumni from our graduate business programs um that will be speaking to um their experiences in the program so we do have canned questions for them i think we'll start with a couple of those questions and then um we'll jump into the panel portion and open it up to q a for the attendees um feel free again as questions come in you know feel free fire those away in the chat and we'll kind of go through those um as they as they come in but let's start with introduction so if the panelists could just briefly introduce themselves um and your program or your the program you graduated from and the company you might be working for now and what that's looking like for you um so auggie if we can start with you and then we'll we'll work our way around um to the to the panelists yeah definitely uh my name's augie and i graduated from suny geneseo in may 2020 i was an accounting major there with a finance minor and now i'm working at constellation brands as a financial analyst and at rit i am a mba student with a concentration in finance thanks soggy um let's go jeanette i'll just kind of work my way around my screen here as you guys are up here okay hi everyone my name is jeanette elia i'm from batavia new york uh i started rit in 2016 in the college of science and then i ended up switching programs and did my bachelor's in accounting and then i did the bsms program to get my master's in accounting at rit as well while i was there i did a few tax internships with a local accounting firm tax internship with genesee and wyoming railroad company an internship with the institute of internal auditors and then i also worked at rit in the gift reporting department and the marketing and communications department and while i was there i was really involved with the women in business club and i graduated last may right in the midst of covid and started working at mengelemetzger bar a local accounting firm and i'm doing audit work now for small business and governmental clients and i'm currently working on the cpa exams awesome thank you janette really appreciate that that background um let's go uh muhammad if you could go go next sure uh hello everyone my name is mohammed i am a graduating master of science student at saunders college of business majoring in business analytics uh tech data and analysis have been my areas of entrust and the program that i chose is a pretty decent amalgamation of all these disciplines so which is why i chose this program and i will be completing this by august and uh in the upcoming summer i will be doing my co-op at red hat as a business data analyst red hat works um in the open source space uh linux space open source space so that's where that's where i will be heading so yeah and even right now i'm working as a graduate graduate student worker for a couple of professors so that's about me thank you thank you mohammed and then we'll go to adita did i say that right yeah it's aditya hello everyone um i graduated from saunders in the computational finance program the masters in computational program in december 2019 and uh since then i've been working with a fintech startup here locally in fairport and i'm into data science among other things so it's a startup so we're kind of all hands on like right now so beta science a little bit of technology um is is primarily what i do and this is also the company i was uh co-oping or interning with during my time at uh my program awesome thank you adita and then last but not least austin if you could just jump in here as well yeah absolutely matt uh thanks a lot hey uh hey everyone uh my name is austin umi i am originally from nigeria i came for my master's program at saunders in 2016. um i did the mba program with the focus mis i graduated in 2019 may 2019 and i currently work for a local company here in rochester um scott on the mark i work as the i.t manager for the company and solutions architect i um my background is in computer science so i'm into the tech space i did a bit of data analytics for hershey when i was doing my mba program on internship and um i've been working with the company here um for a little bit over two years now uh that's pretty much it about me you austin so we have a a really really good diverse group here um with with respect to programs backgrounds and you can see i i think it's it's evident um at the graduate level as well the interdisciplinary nature of everything that our students are doing so i think that's a key point to keep in mind as you consider options within business but also explore things that you can leverage you know outside of it as well um so let's start with with a couple of of the canned questions that we have prepared and then again um the folks that are in attendance today feel free to jump in via the chat and then i'll open it up too and you can certainly unmute yourselves if you want to and ask ask any questions um but let's start with um in terms of graduate school and i guess i can start with janette on this one um what would you say was the most challenging part of jumping into grad school for you um from that transition from undergrad to graduate graduate studies i think for me it was a little bit easier because i had done my bachelor's at rit and i had the background in accounting i knew a lot of the professors all the resources available so it helped with the transition i think there was a little bit of a change in coursework it was less set homework assignments and a little more discussion and if you need help with a concept you're it's more on you to reach out to your professors yeah that i think that's a really good point um austin what what are your thoughts coming from you know not an undergraduate program at rit yeah i know absolutely and i think it's one of the very tricky ones for me because uh um if if you've been like in the workforce and then leaving the you know work for job and coming to um to get your master's degree is a big undertaking um it's a major decision one of the major decisions here you're taking you know in your life at least for me was because um you know it's it's it is it's not just a shift in like environment and lifestyle it's also it was also like a ship mentally because you have to prepare yourself you know you're going to get this degree and it's going to you know take you on this journey that pretty much would shape you know your your life and shape the direction in which you go you know in your career so for me what it what um what you know drove my decision is just thinking about um where i was in my career i started up you know like i said my undergrad in computer science and then i worked for a couple of years actually after graduating undergrad you know in the i.t space in the tech space uh did a few projects um also a senior developer for a small tech company back home in nigeria um and then you know i i started seeing myself in you know wanting to grow and trying to you know plan how i want to see my career and seeing the limitations i had within the the space i'm working and i wanted to you know be uh a manager in the lead you know lead a team of people and you know and those are skills that i didn't necessarily have back then as a computer scientist so um eventually i also wanted to like you know own my own business and run businesses and stuff like that um so that was one of the motivation that drove me to getting my mba degree and i think he really defined like shaped my entire you know career moving forward and and he's been he's been great so far i did not regret it one bit it was challenging because um first my ending potential reduced so and you know if you're if you're in that you know work space you would you know have the feeling of working and earning and you know living in a certain lifestyle you have to you know readjust um you know also i was away from family you know friends and all that so it was you know challenging moving to a new environment and making new friends and you know and also adapting um so um but those are necessary things that i you know was worth it uh you know if you have to make a transition you just have to you know prepare yourself for those challenges and try and what you know adapt as much as possible i think the friends and family i i came to have it in rochester in rit made the whole transition and challenge a little bit easier so yeah yeah that was it for me thanks austin that that's great great insight there um any of our other panelists want to jump in on that one in terms of the the challenging part of transitioning to graduate study yeah no i would like to add one thing um so i would say you know getting back into the study mode especially if you're coming off of some professional experiences is a challenge it's going to be a challenge and uh especially you know if you're if you've been working for a company for let's say more than a year you might notice that you know whenever you start working your learning curve is pretty steep right but as you continue to work at times the learning curve flattens out but when you move into a grad school where you know most of the programs are accelerated programs the curve is pretty steep right so you need to get used to that kind of learning both in class and outside of class so that often comes off as a challenge so that that something that you know people joining in might have to be prepared for and uh and another thing is that you know sometimes it's it gets a bit challenging to work on ours outside of you know standard let's say nine to five right because at times you know most of the people that are doing these graduate programs you know are also working so you you may have night classes right um you may have if you're working as well you may have you know a project that requires attention maybe late at night right so so that is something that's that's it's a beautiful experience in itself but can be challenging at times thank you yeah and to kind of uh bounce off that a little bit like you said about working while going to school it's a lot different than working while you're in undergrad because not only is the job at this point probably nine to five or a little bit more time consuming but there's a lot more work that goes into a class at the mba level so time management is definitely something you want to make sure you focus on yeah that's an excellent point because uh i i vividly remember this uh you know when i was doing my undergrad you know all those all-nighters that we used to pull off it becomes much more difficult when you are past a certain age which uh you know at 29 for me it was uh like you have to focus a bit on your health also and ensure that you get enough sleep enough you know downtime so time management becomes absolutely critical and it's not the same as an undergrad program yeah that's a really good point i think um that balance is very important especially for you guys working or who those who have families um and you know setting those priorities but i also think you know you can't get away with the same type of procrastination that you might in an undergrad program right you have to even if you're going part-time you still have those things that are pulling at you outside so i think you know being prepared to you know facilitate those things and have that stuff in place it's it just becomes all that more important and it's you know valuable um from that lens um great so i think this is a good start so we'll do i'm gonna do one more can question and then for the the folks attending um certainly feel free to enter any questions you have at this point into the chat um so kind of piggybacking off that first um question and some of you alluded to this but and this can be anything from your experiences outside the classroom to jobs but what would you say is or was the highlight of your experience within within saunders at the graduate level and we can start with anybody anybody can jump in with that one i i can start on this one um i think one specific highlight that kind of jumps out to me is um so like i said i work at constellation brands which is in the beverage alcohol industry so um wine spirits beer and a lot of my classes so far have been focused on case studies and actual companies and whatnot which i think is cool compared to a lot of the undergrad work that i did and we learned about some wine companies and some wine theft and different types of fraud and how you can mitigate those risks and i was able to actually bring that into work the next day and really act on it and started a whole i think it was about a month long project at work based on that so i think it was really cool to see how immediately applicable um what i was learning was [Music] awesome yeah that's that's great insight there and auggie you're still fairly early in your program right um in terms of getting through it right yeah i just started uh this past fall right so i think that's really good contacts that from day one you're really getting that hands-on an experiential learning piece um and you're gonna see that continuing throughout whether it's you know in a specific class or with the capstone projects that you may do um anybody else want to jump in with with that one yeah uh building off of what augie said uh i would say you know during one of my interviews i was explaining the projects that i had done um in my courses and uh the interviewers pointed out that you know they were really impressed with the projects that i had done so i mean of course i made a great deal of effort too but the ideas the technologies and the tools that i was exposed to through my courses were really good because um the projects that we that i did they were all based on problems that you know people are trying to resolve and offer businesses around us and uh the technologies that were used the tools that were used are the ones that are really relevant to the industry out there so um while while explaining my projects you know one of my interviewers pointed out that you know this project that that you're talking about and the techniques that you've used these are exactly what i want to do right exactly what i'm actually struggling with and you seem to know all of this so i would say you know that was a point where i realized that you know whatever i had done was very relevant very appropriate for the industry and that was something that i was actually expecting to get out of this uh of my program so yeah that served as a you know a highlight of my time at solder so far awesome thank you thank you muhammad anybody else want to jump in on that one we can certainly move on to another one but i want to open it up to anybody else yeah yeah let me just uh uh mine actually it was a difficult one for me because i i would i feel like i had so so much you know so many wonderful experiences uh sundays and and and truly it's it's because um i i i i went with the mindset of the emergency myself in in the program and not just the program but you know um but also the community you know so um i'll i'll give a couple of instances of you know my highlights um so i i i was just like mohammed i also worked with uh as a student uh graduate student worker um i was uh the strength ambassador for saunders i worked with a couple of um staff including peggy and um and and that experience alone kind of like grew me from like where i started um you know and helped me experience you know a different culture different mindset was achieved for me um truly because i got to you know experience the work for the corporate workforce kind of before going into uh like the the job you know the job market uh and then and then moving from there i worked at hershey for almost a year uh hershey diamond pier were just across the chocolate um was it called chocolate factory um actually that was that was a totally it was an amazing experience we have no idea we're across the park where the headquarters of the company was and every day you hear kids screaming down the roller coaster going out and it was just uh just a wonderful experience i got to work on a truly impactful project for the company uh we got to save them you know several millions um it was data analytics project where i got to implement a system that will help them save over five million dollars on like um uh peanuts on the purchase no peanut and uh you know it was just wonderful i got to meet the president of the company the vice president of u.s oppressions

the you know got to interview um i got to present my work to them which is something that rarely happens um i got to lead the intent there as the um as as as the ambassador for the internship for the summer internship program we went on several uh events and uh it was just amazing overall and then even bringing it back home in uh you know to rit um i was involved in delta sigma prize it was it's a student business franklinity uh if if you guys those that are still at rit if you want to check it out i would highly recommend you know it's them wonderful people and um it's just overall like the like i could put a highlight reel of my experience at you know at saunders and it was just overall amazing um yeah so that's pretty much it in a nutshell all right thank you austin um so at this point um definitely want to open it up to questions from our from our attendees so anybody have questions um with respect to the the folks that attended in the audience i'll jump in with a question all right thanks pradeep yeah i'm curious from from all of you how you made the decision and i know some of you have undergrad backgrounds to focus within business but how did you make the decision to go for perhaps the ms degree that focused on one area versus a more generalized program like the nba that's awesome really good question so anybody want to jump in with that one um yeah i can lead with that so uh i think the most critical factor was i had a career existing uh back home like in india in finance uh but over time i saw a great deal of technology you know disrupting the traditional practices in the traditional way of doing business and finance and uh you know i honestly wanted a piece of the action like uh i just didn't want to get left behind uh without having a strong technical skill set so that's that's primarily the reason why i decided to come to rit and uh us as a whole as a country i think it's it's far more uh developed in some regards uh when it comes to technology and uh i think those those were the driving factors so learning a new skill set and uh sort of augmenting my existing uh career with with uh some more technical skills was was pri the primary motivation i would say i would like to add something to this um building on top of what althea said um so one thing is to you know get into the tech world because that's where everyone is moving nowadays and uh so yeah so you may find yourself looking for a course that teaches you a couple of technologies because uh that that's where the world is well and this and your actual question of being able to decide you know how why would you want to go for something specific versus something more general so if you're if you're looking to get into the industry i would like you to put yourself in the issues of an employer would you want to hire an employer an employee that knows specifically what you're doing or would you rather hire someone you know who has an idea of what you do but you know is well-rounded now both can be hired i'm not saying that only one of this category gets gets gets higher but for specialized roles people do have a preference for candidates that have exactly that skill set right so if i want to move to let's say a more analytical role well business analytics is the program for me right if i have that program i have the exact skill and exact knowledge and exact expertise required for such roles so when i go on to apply for them i have a greater chance of of getting in and also because you know if you're interested in a subject you know just going for it often is better rather than you know because your undergrad is often general like you do have a major but then you know it's it's not highly specific i had a computer science background and that taught me a lot of things but you know i would say that it was not from rit but uh i was still saying that you know what what i was taught was far from what the industry was practicing right so you knew the underlying concepts but not exactly what in what the people in the industry were practicing but in a master's program you get taught exactly what is being practiced in the industry and it makes you way more relevant to the kind of jobs and the kind of fields that you aim for basically great i agree i think that's definitely the practical experience and the expertise in one subject was why i went with the ms versus the mba i think if i had done a different undergrad other than accounting because i took all the general business classes like finance and marketing for undergrad i felt like i wanted to dive a little deeper into the accounting side um for my master's and i think it definitely helped like studying for the cpa exams and starting work i have a deeper understanding of those from classes that i know people in the mba program maybe didn't get to take because they were taking other business classes so that was how i made my decision so i would ask i was just gonna ask augie to to play off of that coming in from the nba and having some work experience how did you come about your decision to go with the mba yeah so i kind of did like i had already taken and passed my cpa exams so as an accounting major with the cpa i decided that i wanted to go a little bit different from the accounting background so that's why i wanted to get into a little bit more of a diverse program to kind of branch out a little bit and have that background in something else so i think it works both ways specializing obviously like everyone else has said is a really good route to go but people also like to see a diverse background so if you feel that you're in a position where you have some sort of specialization like a cpa or an accounting degree or whether it's that analytics degree whatever branching out from there and getting a little bit more of a diverse background can also be good good point yeah and i think one of the one of the really key things with our mba is that you are you are essentially pursuing a path of the t-shaped professional right that is something that's often discussed in you know in management type roles but you're getting that generous exposure and then you get to elect a concentration in a specific area so that's something that's slightly different than some other mba programs you might see also some exciting news for our international students is that the mba is now stem designated um that just happened last week so we're really excited about that along with our ms program and finance um so our portfolio now has was it six or seven stem programs now so we are um you know having and adding that value across all of our programs whether general or not because of that technical focus and with the mba it can be a really good fit for a student that wants that leadership role and like jeanette alluded to coming from a non-business background we have plenty of students that have that business background and are able to wave foundational courses in the program and then they're able to leverage that further with the concentration and then yes you're gonna see a strong return roi in your first job but it's a second and third job where it really sets you up to to optimize those outcomes and jump into those leadership type roles so it's all preference it is the choice you make is is very individual from that perspective and i think that's the point that everyone here is speaking to is that there's a lot of value across all of our programs even with our ms programs you have some of those electives that you can jump into as well and kind of customize not as many courses necessarily as mba but here and there two to three where you can focus on an area outside potentially that might not be directly related to that ms program um austin did you want to jump in there i i saw you yeah i wanted to just you know and i think you you pretty much so you know just summed it up um and one of the the very cool thing about sanders mba program or the program in general is is pretty flexible you know i remember when i started up i think it was um i started up with with with a different concentration i did i started up with technology management something like that and then on over over the course of the of the first year i kind of like weighed out the program and without what i wanted and you know and i switched to the mis concentration so you know and also you also as you know like you mentioned you can pretty much customize the the uh you know the mba concentration to what fits what you know what you're gonna do so i think the first step in making that decision is just thinking about yourself just like mohammed mentioned just thinking about what you want to do in the future and where you see yourself working and this kind of skills cells you know that you want you know to um to get from the program and then that would help drive your decision going towards a particular concentration yeah thank you great yeah thank you guys that was that was great great stuff there um other so other questions that we have from from our attendees that you want to jump in with yeah i'll go um very nice to meet you guys and nice to see you peggy my name is katrina and i'm also an rit graduate i graduated with applied mathematics and bachelor's degree now i'm planning to go for ms in business analytics and i just had a question in regards more in careers i i heard also mohamed talk about this a little bit when it comes to like those specialty jobs and first off like how much programming did you learn in this program at rit with business analytics and second what are some of the career paths that you think are like typical roles for um students that finish this program and sorry to put you on the spot i just heard you totally fine totally fine and thank you for asking this question it's an important one so uh your first question is how much programming did i learn so yes uh you can consider this a programming intensive uh program uh but you will be assisted a lot uh a lot of the times uh i mean in most of the courses they do have programming but um your instructors will assist you in building up the capability to program but uh yes i do remember my first semester i spent a decent amount of time uh practicing programming so yes uh that's that's that's gonna be important and that will be required uh do not confuse this with uh the level of programming required for computer science or software engineering or even data science right uh that's like maybe a notch up but uh some level of programming will be required you will build up models you will build up you know visualizations and and all of that and you know you would be asked to code your logic so yes it will be programming intensive uh but yes you but programming is not going to be the only thing which is like one thing that i do like about this program it's it requires a lot of programming but whenever you're done programming then you're gonna take that program whatever you have built and you know place it in it's in its place and you know analyze the whole situation using the program that you've written so it's it's a more holistic approach to analyzing uh situations and coming up with strategies so uh and uh the next question was about the opportunities the kind of uh disciplines that you can go into so um as i mentioned i i have a co-op and then i am looking out for full-time opportunities as well so i am focusing on roles like business analysts right data analysts and uh there is a distinction of course um the descriptions vary with companies but generally speaking business analysts are little less programming intensive roles uh they are more towards understanding customer requirements and then mapping them on to uh you know creating you know a requirement specification documents and uh ensuring that you know the customer's vision is translated onto the team uh so that's one area where you could go to business analyst the other is data analysts um what you will do uh in in in the program will be very relevant to data analysis right uh you're going to do various forms of analysis you're going to use different languages like python r sql and uh you're going to use all of them to analyze the various data sets and real world data actually so that's the other role and if entrusted because i have two years of project management experience and now i'm being a data person so there is another relevant role that opens up that is product management right because people who go into product management have to do a lot of market research and uh perform various analyses to to see where to take that product so that is another field which you can uh aim towards data science is one but uh yeah if you're doing msba and you want to go into data science you will need to you know learn a few more concepts on your own because like i mentioned data science has one notch up in terms of the programming capability required because msba will not really teach you much about machine learning uh well some concepts but not a lot let's hope that helps thank you i think that was helpful muhammad because i think one of the things we're doing is putting the prerequisite now of doing moocs in r and python prior to starting the program and i i suspect that some students are sort of questioning the relevance of that i think you you nailed it by stating that from day one you're going to be jumping in so the more comfort level you have ahead of time the easier the transition into the start of the program is so thank you you're welcome that was that was really well said um really well well said um i think you know the the other the other key point there too is that there is some ability um i know we've had a few students work in a computer science course here and there um obviously you need the prerequisites for that but there is some capability to work that and if you choose to but i think the overarching point here is very important that you are getting some of that background in the in the computer programming avenue but it's also just as important to be able to articulate all of those things on the front end and understand it from a customer perspective and also in-house being able to articulate that stuff to folks that may not have his full understanding of that really intensive technical side so um it's a great great summation of of that um all right other so other questions that folks in the audience have we still have about 15 minutes or so so we still have we're doing pretty good on time um i i have a good question um and from kind of an employment standpoint throughout your programs i've heard a variety of people working as the graduate student workers or having held nine to fives and just from your personal experience what either type of employment was like for you just from a personal standpoint of finishing my undergrad and different avenues that i could take as my graduate program approaches so i actually worked on campus in the marketing communications department while i was in the program and they were very flexible and i've heard this from a lot of people across all campus jobs really flexible about your courses come first and being flexible about hours in terms of when your courses are so i think that is a really good if you have the option to work on campus and not have the nine to five um to get the experience you get a little more immersed in the school too you get to learn about maybe different programs or like i got to learn about the marketing end um but i think it definitely helps for that work life balance yeah going off of what janet said um yes these two are pretty different avenues like if you work outside of rit versus if you work within campus like on campus uh i mean of course the pay is different as well but if you work outside of campus they will never really understand that you do have you know a full-time master's or whichever program you're aiming for but if you work on campus like i i have a couple of uh graduate student worker positions and i also work as a receptionist at bosh alarm so all of my employers have been really cooperative when it came to my studies or you know they understood if i was under pressure or you know needed some more time to deliver something they have always you know specifically explicitly stated that you know your studies come first right so so if you're unable to come in for a shift that's okay if you're if you need more time to you know do something uh that's fine if we can understand you know just take your time and that really helps because your workload is going to be decent but it's it's not going to be uh very stable so let's say you know they're going to be weeks where all of your courses have deadlines right but then there there may be weeks that you know only one of them has so you need that flexibility you need an employer who can understand that that's the case so yeah that that's going to help you you know ensure that you get your uh studies done as well as you know retain your job so so yeah that that that really helps and and just to add to that uh moment because i actually worked on campus um and then i walked off campus and then i worked both at the same time but uh it's it's so it's it's more like um time management and also knowing yourself because you just have to know what works for you some people can can only work you know a couple of hours a week and get born talented because they have schoolwork and other things going on and some people can juggle everything at the same time for me what i did was structuring it in a way where i had weekends to myself so you know i had to obviously take care of myself um i had mondays wednesdays and fridays i was working on campers and then tuesdays and thursdays i was working off campus and then it was it was a live semester i think i was only taking like two or three classes that's that semester so uh it worked out for me if i was taking four or five classes i wouldn't want to try you know do that because uh you know you don't want to get you have to you know structure your time and you know obviously the classes come first like you know you start this come first you want to make sure you do well in your program you're getting the knowledge and all that and the work is obviously just to supplement what you're learning in class and you know trying to work that in real life and see how all that you know ties together so overall is just knowing yourself and having a work-life balance that works perfectly yeah yeah so i'm kind of on the other side of things um i've been working full-time the nine-to-five option and i think jeannette had a great point with when you're doing that you really don't have a chance to immerse yourself into the school as much as you might want to so like it's very tough for me to join too many clubs or really go on campus much i'm maybe there once a week last semester and then the semester i'm all online so that obviously doesn't help too much either but um i think it is worth looking into my employer helps pay for um school so that's something um that's definitely beneficial um and my managers have been very flexible so like i have some classes that start at five or five thirty sometimes and they'll be like you know go head out at 4 or 4 30 to go get dinner and get there on time and everything and i i know a lot of employers may not be that flexible but it's something to work like it's worth looking into i think question yeah thank you courtney that was a really good question um and remember i think you know the the co-op is also an option too obviously that's only one semester but that is something that pretty much all of our programs can support it is optional certainly not required i mean typically depending on the program it could potentially extend the length of the program especially for the mba um but that is another route that you can always always look at too so other other questions that folks have attendees have all right so i do have a couple more that i think we'll wrap up with then um i guess so this one we've alluded to a few things but i think i kind of want to put a bow on it um in terms of what advice you would have for a student starting their degree um in at the graduate level in in in saunders i can go okay so um yeah so i have a couple of advices uh the first is academic related so i would suggest that you know all of these programs are pretty accelerated so you would want to cover each week's content before coming to class and that's that really helps because a lot of people you know just go to class expecting to learn everything there and then versus if you're someone who you know the material is always available before class probably you know three four days before class or the weekend before class so if you get into the habit of doing it before coming to class you're gonna come to class fully prepared and you're gonna be able to ask really good questions on like building on top of what you've already learned and that's gonna help you participate in class really well and that's gonna give you a head start that's gonna go a long way right once you get ahead of everyone i i don't mean to be very competitive here well what i'm saying is that if you get into the habit of staying abreast of everything then that is something which you would be able to maintain throughout till the end of the semester so that is one thing again if once you let's say get behind your schedule playing catch up and you know such a fast-paced environment is is a bad idea well and uh the second advice that i have is related to job search and all it has to do with your course projects i would strongly recommend that you put in a lot of effort into your course projects because when you apply for jobs those may be the only or most relevant experiences you have on your resume so let's say i came from this computer science background from my undergrad and now i'm doing business analytics now i'm not applying for software engineering roles so my computer science background is not too relevant here right and the two years that i worked in between that was project management and that has something to do with uh what companies do but not a lot right so the projects that i did in my ms let's say first semester they are the ones that are most prominent most relevant experiences on my resume so when you're working on them just make sure you put in that extra amount of effort to to make them look good because you know someday you you may need to use them to get that job that you want so yeah i think that that that's going to help you a lot thank you that's a really good point about oh sorry go ahead i just say really good point in what we try to often tell students to think about when they're approaching their school work is to to think about that as an opportunity for perhaps showing a prospective employer so go ahead jeanette sorry i thought that was a really good point about reading ahead too i think in undergrad the professors have a little more of an expectation like i told you to read this chapter and they know probably a lot of students might not have read the chapter so they still teach it but with grad school we would come to class and our professors would already have questions for us about it and instead of teaching the chapter like unit by unit it was more discussion about how we felt about it so if you didn't read it you really didn't get as much out of it as you would have um and then another thing i think just use your resources the staff and the professors and saunders are great and helpful but you have to reach out if you need questions if you have questions about your coursework if you have questions about what class you should take maybe for certain jobs that you're pursuing they're really willing to help out and they definitely know their stuff so take advantage of that while you're there that really helped me out yeah well said uh mohammed and and janae um i just wanted to add that um you know the um just like mine mentioned taking side like projects and you know and doing work um outside of classes would help you in the long run i remember um how i got the job at hershey was you know i went to the one of the career fairs on campus and i was just talking about the daily uh like a data analytics project i did for um for my work study and then and and he just sparked a conversation and then we got talking i got an interview and then you know once in length or another and then i got a job so um those projects you you do out outside of classwork can really go a long way in advancing the ball you know when it comes to you know job prospects and um the other thing that um i also wanted to emphasize this was like leveraging the resources you have you know um like the professors so um even to just the fellow students actually can help a lot um i got to meet some of my classmates and we had i had study sessions with them we did projects together um you know just um engaging with the community and just you know being involved actively involved can help also with overall experience so that's one advice i will give i just wanted to say something a bit more generic uh i guess it's it's really important that you kind of define your goals and define why you are doing what you're doing at this point so uh one reason could be perhaps you want better job prospects right so then you kind of want to understand uh what kind of a role you aspire to or you know what industry are you targeting and work towards that so the other thing is probably you want more of a scholastic experience uh then you you probably want to get more involved with uh you know clubs in the college uh develop your personality so i mean not everyone will have the same ideas and objectives around you as as you have and i think it's it's really important that you sort of define those and you stick to them and that will kind of be the you know the be all and end all of it so that will define your experience um in this program and i think that that's more uh helpful at the end of the day to see if my objectives were met and if i could do anything better you know to get to that so yeah i think it's it's much more uh helpful if you be a bit more introspective and uh try to see how you can optimize uh what you're doing all the time again it sounds a bit more generic but uh i think it's it's it's uh definitely important to do that at some point yeah that's a huge point yeah absolutely those objectives are key um and really really important to consider as as you seek out those options and and you're right every student's experience is different and their goals are different with regard to that um and you know we have the ability to support um those that really want to get involved and we have the ability to you know work with those students that may want to be you know more in that traditional nine-to-five job and might be going part-time so um you know we have we have clusters of students in both both avenues so it's a great point um any last questions from from folks in the audience um we really appreciate you being here um and this has been really really helpful um and certainly something that we'll um you know post out online for folks to view again but um any any last minute questions folks have i've got one if they don't uh if they're well they're thinking on that last question um for the for the panelists i am always curious as to why rit i know many of you may have applied to other universities or investigated other universities but what drew you to rit and make you make the decision to actually enroll at rit and saunders um well for me it was i think both the flexibility of the program and also the price point um since i had this job coming in before i had applied to rit i knew i wanted to be in the rochester area so i had kind of narrowed it down to st john fisher rit or u of r and i think the flexibility of the program while you're working is definitely a huge factor that i know some of the other schools don't have and i think it was also kind of the best bang for your buck at the same time too so i think um there's a lot of reasons but that was uh kind of the main thing for me yeah i would like to add that um for me the structure of the program was very important and i felt that uh my program in particular the mspa program it was so well structured that it it made me feel that that's the only one that i would want to do because um and even like to do to date uh i often think that you know the the people who created this program have thought it through all right uh what you're gonna study that's to be very relevant to what you're going to do ultimately in what sequence you're going to study that that is also very important because let's say if you're doing a one year program you're going to be applying to jobs maybe you know one two month into your your your program so you would want to learn the essential skills at the beginning and you would want to learn these skills that are really required in in the industry for example uh you know statistics or let's say our language is generally like required for analytical roles right so i studied courses about them in the fall as opposed to let's say marketing analytics right which is also important but companies are or whenever when they're hiring they don't really ask marketing analytics questions usually in an interview what they do ask is something which you would have already covered in your initial semester right the first semester so and then the possibilities that students have you know if you want to do if you want to do a co-op you know what is the protocol for that they will they have thought it through all how how a co-op would be integrated into your program when are you going to graduate and everything has been well thought out and that is something that i really liked about this program and rit in general uh so that made me you know make this decision yeah um for me um i think uh it was it was a number of factors actually um um just like uh uh one might also mention the structure of the program was one thing um you know i if i took it took me over a year actually to plan and you know apply and then get admitted into um saunders and i got and admitted into a couple of other colleges but ultimately you know it wasn't just for me and one of the things i would say is like um the focus of of the college as a whole is the technology focused college and my background in tech you know it's one of my driving force you know i love using technology in all aspects of business and you know the program structured the way they are you know like right off the gate you're learning about um skill set that will be vital for you and the workforce remember going into my internship at hershey and then you know using r um for my for a project all through and i had learned how a semester prior to going for internship so and that was the first time you know even though i've done programming in the undergrad i hadn't really worked with r so um so that that that for me just tells me one thing like you know the college prepares you to be successful in whatever you know role or career you choose to go to and um and you know the structure of the program um the price point of the program too because that was a key factor too you know it's not you know um it's it's a premium education you know but it's not priced like you know how or i high up there with you know like uh one like some of the the most expensive colleges in the in the us um also you have opportunities for scholarship and which i actually got some scholarship um coming into the program so that you know what's like icing on the cake um and then um um obviously like uh um like the community you know rochester i wanted to be you know in the in the region as well so those are some of the things that drove me to to sanders all right thank you awesome and and thank you guys for that for that info it's certainly helpful um sorry if you hear screaming kids in the background don't give it any thought it's that that's when you have a four-year-old and a two-year-old that's that's what happens so um but thank you all thank you all for joining us um i appreciate it i didn't have one question yeah yeah go ahead i didn't have a question like uh muhammad i think you are doing msba so i just wanted to ask like uh is cooper different from internship like you said you were you can complete your course in one in a year or maybe 16 months is there a possibility that you can complete your course in 16 months and the other question i wanted to ask is how are international students like welcomed in rit so related to that also that that is a second question so can you please answer it sure so um first is that uh co-op and internship are essentially the same thing right uh my like the company offered me an internship and at rit i'm doing it as a co-op so uh there may be slight differences but you can you know just treat them as the same and that's not gonna cause any trouble uh so yes uh so yeah that's one thing the other thing is that uh about completing the program uh even if you do the co-op you can still complete the program in one year and uh that is an option that i still have in that uh my last semester to summer semester i can work full-time up to 40 hours a week basically and and take the courses and i i think the three courses that i have to right so the way this program is structured is that the the last three courses for summer one of them is going to be uh sort of uh replaced maybe by the co-op right and for that course you would register but not take any classes the ex the analytics experience course if you have looked at the course um structure that course can be replaced by a co-op you will only need to submit a single paper um describing your experience on the co-op right and that's going to satisfy the needs of that course the other two courses can be taken along with your co-op if you wish to do it right however if you get a co-op and if you have accepted an offer and you don't want to study at the same time you can take those um last semester courses in the next semester so you then you would essentially be extending your program so for instance you know i am in my second semester i have a co-op to do and i can make a decision to go with the co-op and the courses during the summer and graduate by august still or i can just focus on my co-op and take the other two courses to the upcoming fall and uh the other last question that you had was about international students and experience um i would say that if you uh start that i'm sorry you have to drop off so i'm sorry for cutting you in but uh thank you everyone for uh you know this experience and thanks peggy and matthew and if anyone has any questions feel free to you know email me or get in touch with me or anything so thank you guys i actually have to hop off as well but it was great meeting everyone and definitely reach out if you have any questions thanks thank you all right so uh yeah okay so yeah about international students i would say that rit has been really good you have a lot of help available from everywhere whether it's the international student services whether it's the career services office or your program directors and everyone uh is super helpful but yes uh you need to ask for help so that that's going to be the first and probably the only step that you have to do to get help there are a lot of people to help you out to do through the process and uh almost everyone is very well aware of of the process in fact so your academic advisor knows exactly you know the kind of courses and the number of courses you need to be enrolled in to maintain your full-time status and and you like it's not that you know only the international student services knows about these things everyone knows about how to handle international students and if you're unsure just make it a point to ask and anyone who you're in contact with and even if they're not the relevant person they will put you in contact with the relevant person so if you have any specific questions about interest students yeah i'm willing to entertain them but overall it's it's been good so far i i'd just like to add furniture that about 45 of our incoming graduate students are international students and in any given year we'll have anything from 12 to 25 different countries represented so i think this is an area of to some extent expertise at rit but also in saunders college so it's a pretty well balanced and we've got a lot of experience in degrading international students into the the community awesome thank you thank you both um all right well thank you folks for for jumping on we did go a little bit over but it was well worth it for sure um so thanks again everybody and feel free to get in touch with us if you have um further questions you want to connect with any of the panelists um we can you know certainly work towards that and make that happen but we appreciate you jumping on and we'll be doing a session in actually it's next week um so this then the one next week will be on graduate student housing um so definitely feel free to jump on that um you know if you have questions about about that process but hopefully we'll see some of you next weekend and thanks again for for jumping up thanks everyone thank you forever

2021-04-09 16:01

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