Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics at Pennsylvania State University

The 9 credit graduate certificate program in Business Analytics (BAN) prepares business professionals to explore and analyze large data sets to support data-driven business decisions.  The program covers the entire life cycle of a data analytics project using the descriptive/prescriptive/predictive framework for business analytics:

• descriptive (What happened?),
• predictive (What will happen?) and
• prescriptive (What should happen?). 

Target audiences include business analysts, analytic systems designers and the data scientists who have a focus on problems arising in the contexts of business decision-making.  The certificate program builds on basic analytic concepts that professionals are expected to have and provides a practical approach to expanding these analytic skills to perform tasks in various areas of business such as marketing, supply chains, operations, forensics, and risk.

1. Communication Skills: Students will know how to formulate and articulate results, analysis, and strategic action plans individually and collaboratively in written, oral, or presentation form.
2. Professional Skills and Problem Solving: Using relevant tools, analytic theories, and professional observations students will be able to conduct analyses that transform data into meaningful information.
3. Integrative Understanding: Students will understand how to apply data and analytics to the full spectrum of business analytics practice (descriptive, predictive and prescriptive).