Microsoft Employees Serve as Guest Data Analytics Instructors
Students from the Data Mining for Business Analytics course learned about Microsoft’s analytics services.
Musa Jafar, Ph.D., associate professor of computer information systems and business analytics, has taught a senior seminar in Data Mining for Business Analytics (BUAN 410) every week during the spring semester. Every week, except for last week, when two technical solution specialists from Microsoft served as guest instructors.
To give students insider knowledge on current software application, Jafar reached out to John O’Sullivan ’87, a technology strategist at Microsoft. O’Sullivan then connected Jafar to his Microsoft colleagues Steven Batista and Kendall Jakes to teach a crash course in Power BI, a new Microsoft analytics service that aims to provide business intelligence capabilities with an interface for users to create their own reports and dashboards.
“I had never used Power BI before this class and by the end of the week I felt like my skills were enhanced with this application,” said Ashley Pajer ’20. “And it serves as a good resume booster.”
Batista and Jakes taught advanced data mining techniques by using real world examples. They reviewed transit data from New York City’s MTA website and broke down statistics from the 2018 National Football League season.
“We want to be on the cutting edge of business analytics. It's essential for a range of business careers, from finance to marketing,” said Donald Gibson, P.h.D., dean of the O’Malley School of Business. “We appreciate the Microsoft team visiting our classroom and look forward to building on this relationship.”
Students from Manhattan College’s business data analytics club, along with Alin Tomoiaga, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer information systems, plan to visit to Microsoft’s midtown Manhattan office at the end of the spring semester.
–John Dove '18, '19MBA