Grad Program Teaches Customer Data Analysis

Recognizing the competitive edge students gain by learning data mining skills that can ultimately help businesses identify patterns in customer behavior, the School of Management is now offering a graduate certificate in Business Intelligence and Data Mining.

To thrive in today’s fiercely competitive environment, corporations are challenged with differentiating themselves, identifying customer trends and building lasting customer relationships. The Business Intelligence and Data Mining certificate program is designed to help students learn the software and skills needed to make proactive, market-driven decisions by sifting through and analyzing internal customer data, said Mark Thouin, director of the School of Management’s Information Systems program.

“Businesses are increasingly looking for students who graduate with data mining skills and can use those skills once they enter the workforce,” Thouin said. “To meet this growing demand, we realize we must produce analytically trained graduates to extract meaningful information from the huge amounts of data most organizations already have. With this data, they’re able to better understand and pinpoint customer patterns and product trends in order to increase sales.”

The School of Management certificate program teaches students technology skills required to compete in today’s high-technology marketplace featuring business intelligence and data mining techniques and hands-on training using SAS, the market-leading advanced analytical software platform. Students may receive the certificate after completing four three-credit-hour courses that explore the tools and strategies analysts need to transform data into critical management information.

Required courses for the program include: business perspective, statistics, data preparation and data mining. The program is open to degree and non-degree-seeking students. Students already enrolled in a degree program in the School of Management are automatically eligible to enroll in the certificate program. Non-degree-seeking students may apply online.

Approved by the university’s Academic Senate in December 2008, the new certificate program, says Thouin, has already proven successful, resulting in job placements at such corporations as Southwest Airlines, Wells-Fargo and Blockbuster Inc. “The program teaches students to respond smarter and faster to environmental and competitive changes, abilities that are in high demand in today’s marketplace,” Thouin said.

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