The strong desire of being an enterprise architect brings me to the front door of Weatherhead School of Management. The first step towards my dream job is to become a junior business analyst. However, the four-year undergraduate program with so many limits on course enrollment is not enough for me to be well-prepared to take the step. Compared to the general education courses of the undergraduate program, the curriculum set of the Master of Science in Management-Business Analytics program in Weatherhead is more professional and practical. The business core, analytics core, and applied business analytics overlap with each other. Thus, students are able to establish analytic skills and business decision-making ability at the same time. Two unique …show more content…
in the United States, as an account executive. My daily work consisted of searching for clients who need brand promoting and offering them the most suitable and effective promotion plans. The sales department was pretty small. We shared one Google form, which recorded all contracted clients' information and the information of clients we were approaching, and each time we wanted to assure that a new client was not on the form, we had to perform a find and replace under the edit tab. However, as the only operator of 58.com Inc. in the United States, Universal Prospect Corporation would not be satisfied with this status quo. To increase the company's market share and profitability, it would be essential to set up a central database that consists of all the contracted and prospective clients' information, and one that also performs data mining to find more potential clients. Even a workplace newbie like me could see that a central database and appropriate analysis tool would be essential for the company's future development. It is not hard to imagine how urgent the demands of business analytical professionals …show more content…
As a sales person, I have to interact with all sorts of people from all walks of life. I gained communication skills, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving skills from the job. Before meeting clients, I always think in advance about what doubts my clients would have and what questions they would ask. When sharp questions pop up during a face-to-face conversation, I must grasp the client's intention and do the problem-solving immediately. I also learned from my colleagues to start a documentation of my own clients' information and a record of the problems I encountered during work. In the sales team, we gather the records of performance for each team member and perform the vertical and horizontal analysis biweekly. I feel that everything is gradually becoming a habit in my life. Even though I am going to start a new career in business analytics, all of these skills I gained from the job as an account executive are transferrable to any other careers and would benefit me for a