For the second year in a row, a UCA student team has competed in the business analytics competition at Manhattan College. Students in the CISA 4V71 Project Course began in February to analyze the dataset provided by the competition. After months of preparing, teams presented their results to a UCA committee in the form of a poster on May 1. Once the winning team was announced, they began preparing for competition against other university teams in New York City.
The O’Malley School of Business hosts the Business Analytics Competition & Conference at Manhattan College for undergraduate students studying Business Analytics or related fields to test their knowledge and hone their skills. Competing teams engage in decision-making as well as practice their ability to draw business insight from a comprehensive analysis of relevant data.
The group arrived at the Manhattan College campus on Monday, May 20, to begin the first phase of the competition. That afternoon, students presented their poster multiple times to a revolving set of judges. Tuesday morning marked the beginning of the second phase of the competition, when they were given an additional analysis to perform using the same dataset, challenged to submit their results as a slide deck before 9pm that evening for the next day’s presentation. On Wednesday morning, they presented their Phase 2 results to industry judges.
This excellent opportunity gives students a wealth of practical business knowledge and feedback before the enter the workforce. The students on the team included:
- Houston Baber – May 2024 graduate, BS Cybersecurity Management
- Abby Bounds – Senior BS Information Systems major
- Linda Galeano Midence – Senior BBA Finance major/Data Analytics minor
- Ben Scallion – May 2024 graduate, BBA Computer Information Systems
Mrs. Susan Shaw, Lecturer of CISA, was the primary faculty advisor and led the project course in spring 2024, and Dr. Mike Ellis, Associate Professor of CISA, served as co-advisor. Both mentored the students and accompanied them to Manhattan for the competition.
