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Internationally Recognised Industry Accreditation for Graduates of La Trobe University’s Master of Business Analytics Program

Announcement posted by SAS 14 Feb 2019

New Post-Graduate Support from SAS – La Trobe Analytics Partner since 2007

MEDIA RELEASE: Melbourne, 14 February, 2019

Extending the relationship it established with SAS in 2007, La Trobe University has announced that graduates of its Master of Business Analytics course will now qualify for SAS assistance in gaining internationally recognised industry accreditation.

Significantly, La Trobe University also recently announced that its course – which incorporates SAS business analytics technology and was launched in 2016 – has been named in the 2019 QS Master of Business Analytics world rankings of universities in 17 countries.

La Trobe’s Kok-Leong Ong – Associate Professor, Business Analytics – believes this recognition is mainly due to positive feedback after graduation. “We can list a whole range of organisations ready to hire our students, and their strong career outcomes obviously reflect the quality of our program.”

La Trobe’s students typically enrol from a wide range of sources and many are international students and already in the workforce. “Some are already in analytics and looking to upgrade their skills,” says Associate Professor Ong. “While at the other end of the spectrum you get also someone in a call centre who is aware of analytics and wants to advance their career.” 

In addition to the Master of Business Analytics course itself, La Trobe works to help its students into employment with a professional development program that includes industry networking. Ong says, “We do a lot of work outside the curriculum in terms of developing students’ other attributes. The aim is to help them be the ‘complete individual’ that organisations are looking for in a data scientist,” says Associate Professor Ong.

The program also benefits from the input of an advisory board made up of industry executives who help guide curriculum development to keep it abreast of what is happening in the real business world.

Congratulating Associate Professor Ong on the QS ranking, David Bowie – Vice President of SAS Australia and New Zealand – noted La Trobe’s ongoing contribution to growing Australia’s analytics workforce. He said, “While every type and size of organisation is now urgently seeking employees with analytics skills, their availability is still way behind demand.  La Trobe is at the forefront of addressing this problem and we take pride in our long support of their initiatives.”

NEW SAS ASSISTANCE:

The new SAS assistance available to students of La Trobe’s Master of Business Analytics course will help them qualify for SAS industry accreditation in a range of SAS Certification including the SAS Academy for Data Science, for up to two years after graduating. It takes the form of discounted course fees plus ongoing SAS-backed advice and access to online tutorials, toolsets and real world case studies.

SAS industry accreditations include SAS Certified Big Data Professional, SAS Certified Advanced Analytics Professional and SAS Certified Data Scientist. Students earning theses accreditations receive SAS Digital Badging and can also choose to be listed in the SAS Global Certified Professional Directory which is commonly accessed by employers and recruitment agencies.

News Ends

About La Trobe
We believe that higher education is transformative. It shapes people and transforms societies. Our purpose is and always has been to serve our communities for their social, economic and cultural benefit. More than 167,000 students have graduated from La Trobe since we opened our doors in 1967 – all of them encouraged to Be the Difference.

 

About SAS®
SAS is the leader in analytics. Through innovative software and services, SAS empowers and inspires customers around the world to transform data into intelligence. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®.

 

For further information

Tim Mitchell at La Trobe University on 0437 457 780 - or t.mitchell@latrobe.edu.au

Amar Vohra at SAS on 0417 686 135 – or amar.vohra@sas.com