Louisiana State University, Master of Science in Analytics

The Master of Science in Analytics (MSA) at LSU is an exciting degree offered by the Department of Information Systems & Decision Sciences (ISDS) in collaboration with the Department of Experimental Statistics (EXST) and the Department of Marketing. It is designed to prepare students to use data-driven methods to contribute to organizational effectiveness and guide decisions. The curriculum emphasizes the use of business analytics, business intelligence, and information technology to solve problems, reduce costs, increase revenues, streamline processes, and improve decision-making. Students learn specialized skills and knowledge drawn from the fields of computer science, statistics, operations research, and quality management to achieve results through a mixture of classroom instruction, hands-on exercises, and team-based projects. The MSA curriculum emphasizes the use of advanced data management tools, applied statistics, and operations research techniques. Students use SAS, SQL, R, SPSS, Tableau, and other tools to analyze large real-world data sets to increase return on investment, improve customer retention, reduce fraud, and improve decision making. As part of the MSA program, students complete a major team project using a large data set provided by a sponsoring organization. Students present their results and recommendations to the sponsoring organization in a formal executive decision briefing. Students with degrees in business, engineering, economics, statistics, mathematics, and the sciences will benefit the most from this degree. There are no official prerequisites required to apply. However, previous coursework including mathematics, statistics, engineering, science, computer programming, business, and economics is necessary to be successful. The program is suitable for recent graduates and experienced professionals. Many applicants have completed prior graduate coursework, including MS, MBA and PhD degrees.