As students in the MQM program, we’ve spent the last year developing far more than our technical skills. The program’s unique structure allows us to specialize in one of four academic tracks — Marketing, Strategy, Risk, and Finance — each offering a different lens through which to apply data analytics in real-world settings. From building customer-centric strategies, evaluating risk exposure, modeling financial scenarios, or applying business analytics across functions, we’re gaining the hands-on experience we need to meet the demands of today’s data-driven world.

Michelle Ma | Marketing Track

Aside from the core courses shared across all tracks, I find our marketing-specific classes are particularly engaging and forward-looking. For example, in Digital Marketing with Professor Carl Mela, I gained insights into creating data-driven campaigns, measuring campaign performance using advanced analytics, and optimizing customer journeys across digital platforms.

The Customer Relationship Management course with Professor Longxiu Tian enhanced my understanding of how businesses build and sustain strong customer relationships through segmentation, personalization, and loyalty programs, while also teaching me how to leverage customer data to drive retention and long-term value.

These courses, combined with hands-on projects and case studies, have prepared me to address real-world challenges like designing customer-centric strategies, implementing effective digital marketing solutions, and analyzing consumer behavior to inform decision-making. In other courses, I developed expertise in branding, market analytics, and strategic planning.

Sanj Saxena | Strategy Track

To me, the strategy track is built for generalists. Our specialization helps us form a T-shaped understanding of business — we have a broad and deeper-than-average knowledge of various aspects of business through multiple courses.

• Strategic Management with Professor Scott Rockart covered the fundamentals of various frameworks and business strategies.
• In Operations Analytics with Professor Pranab Majumder, we learned how to use data to identify bottlenecks and improve production efficiencies.
• Empirical Economic Analysis with Professor Mike Aguilar exposed us to various econometric methods to rigorously test our hypotheses and findings.
• Finally, Professor Sharique Hasan taught People Analytics, where we learned to use data to inform business choices to achieve long-term, organizational visions.

At the same time, we continued to specialize in business analytics through our core courses. The versatility of our skills is what attracted me to the track. We are equipped with enough knowledge to enter any industry, like health care, operations, consulting, sports, and more.

We have also learned how to use the tools that we need to explore these industries more deeply, ensuring that our learning continues well past Fuqua. I believe that the strategy track perfectly balances essential business skills of pliability with specialized, core data skills. I have thoroughly enjoyed all my subjects and would not trade it for any other track!

Demir Degirmenci | Risk Track

In the risk track, I am learning from experienced leaders in the field. We tackle real-world scenarios in class and team projects, creating a mistake-welcoming environment to learn the fundamental concepts of risk.

Classes like Enterprise Risk Management with Professor Ericka Kranitz gave me a broad view of the risks different organizations face, how those risks are identified, and what leaders do to mitigate the risks. Meanwhile, in classes such as Fraud Analytics, Professor Salman Azhar pushed us to take a deeper dive into detecting fraud, a major issue each company faces today. Being able to detect and illustrate fraud using coding languages such as R, is a useful skill I have developed during my time at Fuqua and will take with me into my first role.

James Beavers | Finance Track

In the finance track, our classes range from introductory finance courses to high-level financial concepts that are as relevant in industry as they are in the classroom. Since I majored in finance during my undergraduate studies, most of the concepts in the introductory finance course were a review for me, but I am still thankful for it. Even with a finance background, having the opportunity to review the foundational pieces of finance with Professor Doug Breeden, the former Dean of Fuqua, was an absolute privilege.

Later, we moved into more master’s-level concepts. These include analyzing option pricing with the Black-Scholes Equation in our Derivatives course with Professor Paymon Khorrami and computing the Sharpe ratio of the optimal Treynor-Black portfolio in Intermediate Finance with Professor Ravi Bansal. Finally, we used R programming extensively in our Fixed Income Securities course with Professor David Hsieh.