June 27, 2011
What colleges should teach in analytics
Based on a Teradata press release calling attention to the small amount of explicit university instruction in business intelligence, I was asked:
Does BI really need a dedicated undergrad track? What sort of BI and analytics-related skills should students look to obtain now in order to be viable in the job marketplace five years out?
My answers were (slightly edited):
- Most important is a basic, intuitive understanding of statistical significance. If you’re looking at an apparent trend, is it real or just random variation?
- Also crucial are general analytic and quantitative problem-solving skills.
- One also should have a comfort level learning how to use new software tools.
- Everybody in business should have those skillsets. So should people in science, medicine, teaching, journalism, government, and most other vocations.
- The more analytically oriented should add basic programming skills, and basic knowledge of SQL. While SQL’s utter dominance is ebbing a bit, it still will be with us for a very long time.
Of course, there are more specialized skills also worth teaching, in a number of areas, starting with statistics and other predictive modeling technologies. But it’s OK to go through life not knowing those.
Categories: Analytic technologies, Business intelligence, Data warehousing, NoSQL, Predictive modeling and advanced analytics, Teradata
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One Response to “What colleges should teach in analytics”
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I agree with your assessment. I found that new Information System graduates are lacking a strong foundation of statistics, analytical and quantitative thinking. Instead they tend to focus on the buzz words of the tools they are exposed to.
Is it worthy of a complete major — perhaps not at the undergraduate level where students are looking for well rounded foundation. But it can be a well received specialization for masters candidates — especially in MBA and Master in Information Systems.