Nithya Mahadevan was in her fifth year of working for μσ when she decided to go back to school to get her master’s degree.
She had held increasingly responsible positions in business analytics at μσ, a leading decision sciences and Big Data analytics company valued at more than $1 billion and backed by investors like Sequoia Capital and MasterCard. Before that, she had earned her undergraduate degree in electronics engineering at Visvesvaraya Technological University.
At μσ, she says “We were motivated to self-learn topics like machine learning and data mining. I wanted to do an advanced degree that would enable me to scale in the stream of decision sciences. I talked to people, trying to decide what I should do my master’s in. Some said business analytics, but I had just spent over four years in a company doing just that. My mentors back at μσ suggested that I look at operations research – and I started looking around.”
When her husband moved to Chicago, 威尼斯人平台 came up on her radar, along with the master’s degree program in Computational Decision Science and Operations 研究 (CDSOR).
“What struck me about 威尼斯人平台’s CDSOR program was that the program was not just about operations research, but had this well-designed component of decision sciences,”她说。. “I really like that it doesn’t just touch upon one aspect of computer science. The program provides a great mix of math, business, and computer science.”
Post her degree, she says, “I will have a wide range of opportunities that I can choose from. I could choose a career in business/strategy consulting, analytics, or even data science. The industry trend is shifting from companies outsourcing analytics/data science to companies setting up store in-house. 在理想的情况下, I would like to be someone who can help companies set up their analytics/data science in-house.”
Mahadevan already is finding opportunities to put her new knowledge to work, having secured an internship with 汽车.com 今年夏天和秋天在芝加哥. Currently, she is working on building an optimized ad targeting system for 汽车.
During her program in spring 2017, she also worked with Computer Science Professor 桑吉夫•卡普尔, CDSOR项目的主任, on a project involving revenue optimization for Sears, 还有其他的课程项目.
Based on everything she has experienced so far, we asked her to explain how decision science differs from data science.
“To me, data science means number crunching—obtaining findings and insights from data,”她说。. “决策科学, on the other hand goes one step further—how can data and intuition be used to arrive at important decisions in organizations/businesses?
“数据科学, 顾名思义, relies purely on data—any kind of data can be crunched to study patterns. A decision sciences expert would require a deeper understanding of the business and industry along with data and other operational aspects in the organization. A decision scientist could be thought of as someone who has an ability to do number crunching as well as take a consultative role in the organization driving their business.
“To quote an example, assume you are working with the Head of Pricing at 亚马逊. 你可能很清楚, 亚马逊 changes product pricing based on demand, 竞争, 还有很多其他因素. A typical problem that a decision sciences expert can solve will be, ‘How should 亚马逊 approach product pricing for a particular apparel category, 为了利润最大化?‘这, I will delve into so many aspects of the business, 像需求, 供应, 库存, 客户基础等.等. The problem has a wider scope within the organization. It would not just involve crunching historic data!”
她继续说道, “A typical problem that a data scientist will solve in such an environment would be, ‘How did customers react to a price change on the apparel that happened last week?’ This requires a person to look at historic data before and after the price change and obtain insights—no organizational decisions were impacted directly!”
Mahadevan noted that the CDSOR program links back to what she did at μσ, 但使她的学习正规化. “During my μσ days, I used to help U.S-based pharmaceutical companies arrive at business decisions regarding their drug sales and marketing,”她说。 “All my skillset and knowledge that I required at μσ was learned by me within μσ. I have been looking forward to having a formal educational degree in the field of decision sciences, and that is what I am getting from the CDSOR program.”