The Online Master of Science in Business Analytics

William & Mary faculty designed the Online MSBA program with a singular goal in mind: to give you an unmatched competitive advantage in the workplace. Our program blends the technical rigor you expect from a graduate analytics program at a top-ranked university with the strategic business insights you need to communicate productively with stakeholders.

As Faculty Director Joe Wilck says, “It is not enough to just know business analytics methodologies. You and your organization need problem solvers who can take data from chaos to clarity.”

Our expert faculty—terminal degree holders who have worked in cybersecurity, information technology, telecommunications, healthcare, marketing, manufacturing, oil and gas, and the Department of Defense—weave the theme of business intelligence and analytics throughout the program. You will learn about the value of big data and the ethics of working with algorithms as well as how to manage teams, communicate solutions and steer data-driven decision-making.

The concept of business intelligence and analytics is introduced prominently in our core course BUAD 5112 Competing Through Business Analytics. In this course, you will learn how to:

• Integrate analytics into business processes
• Visually convey insights from complex data sets in a straightforward, digestible way
• Identify the most difficult and time-consuming steps of business processes
• Create graphs with Python programs using the Matplotlib package
• Create an analytics presentation with graphs you have created
• Program two heuristic algorithms in Python
• Web scrape

This course, and the program as a whole, will challenge you to synthesize your technical and strategic learnings so you can champion the importance of business analytics at any company.

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William & Mary's Online MSBA program is designed to maximize your computing and modeling skills while honing your ability to apply data science to strategic business planning. The program curriculum revolves around four dynamic pillars, and mastery of these pillars helps ensure that you graduate with a tangible advantage in a high-demand field, where opportunities are growing across industries and around the globe.

Explore the learning outcomes of these four pillars:

• Business Acumen: Solve business problems while considering the critical needs of the business and its existing processes, strategy, and organization; share results ethically with respect to customer and client confidentiality
• Math Modeling: Develop algorithms that solve problems with speed and accuracy, select appropriate methodologies to solve a problem, and construct error-free models and analyses
• Computing Technologies: Program effectively in R and Python, use data wrangling to cleanse data and render it more effective in solving business problems, and effectively manage databases
• Communicating With Impact: Create and deliver digestible presentations and data visualizations to audiences less familiar with the intricacies of analytical processes

These skills will guide you in asking the right questions, building the right models and using those models to perform the right analyses. The resulting insights, when appropriately interpreted and communicated, will give you the means to transform business outcomes by telling the right story, in the right way.

See just how many career opportunities you could unlock with the Online MSBA—you might be surprised by the possibilities that await a tested data science professional.

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At the intersection of our four pillars—business acumen, math modeling, computing technologies and communicating with impact—are the talents and tools every data science professional may need for a successful and profitable career in business analytics. The Online MSBA curriculum prepares you to master exactly these.

Our 32-credit curriculum can be broken down into the following three types of courses:

• 4 prerequisite courses
• 1 pre-program course worth 0 credits
• 8 core courses, worth a total of 32 credits

*Note: BUAD 502A, 502B, 502C and 502D are prerequisites for the remainder of the program. Students may be able to satisfy these prerequisites with courses from other sources, and they should inquire about their eligibility during the admission and onboarding process if they wish to do so.

• Complete in as few as 15 months^**
• 100% online
• No residency or on-campus requirement

• 3 starts per year: August, January and May
• Earn your degree from a prestigious business school
• Study with our faculty of industry experts

^{**Students who are required to complete the prerequisite courses can graduate in as few as 18 months.}