What Students Say?
Likes
- My application process was very much delayed and only a few options were left by the time I started applying in late June and July. Also I pivoted my field of study from engineering to business analytics in the last minute. I have initially applied to the engineering programs in universities and I even took admission. Later chagend my mind to pursue business analytics. So I had only two universities taking admissions by that time and this was the obvious choice considering the location, CHICAGO. And the curriculum was comprehensive and I really liked it.
- Location and the Opportunities it brings. Located in the heartland of Chicago, the third largest city in USA with it's architectural grandeur, is "the" place to live for many and it gives students wonderful opportunities to network and forge new relationships that can help boost their career. DePaul University's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business is renowned in mid West and has a wonderful curriculum especially for business analytics.
Dislikes
- "Considering the nature of online classes after COVID pandemic, the experience is similar to that of an online course. Even for the offline classes, there is an option to attend them online in most of the cases. And it's a practical reality that virtually all of the students choose online due to convenience. In this case, paying thousands of dollars, in business analytics, each credit hour was above 1100 USD when I was studying and that meant a simple SQL course of 4 credits, of which the entire syllabus could be learnt in a week, costed me $4,500. which in my opinion was absurd. There were other such subjects in the curriculum. Even though the curriculum was fantastic, the fees was absurd. Secondly, the management was very inefficient. Especially for the international students, the simplest of questions regarding academics or accounts or anything else had taken very long to get answered. Especially, after having submitted the documents online, as it was the way during pandemic, my account was put on hold after a few quarters out of nowhere and I had to submit the hard copy again. I had some questions regarding accounts and well as academiics, I had to go from one office to the other only sent back to the same office again and they themselves didn't know that they were supposed to answer it. Usually it's the student employees at the desk of the office. And contacting the advisor would be the option and emails is very inefficient and time consuming. The zoom sessions are scheduled and usually have waitingtimes. I feel there should be a better way to manage the process for international students considering the sheer amount of volume surge in recent years. "
It was a great time overall.
Course Curriculum
The course was fantastic and quite comprehensive. Coming to relevancy, there is a recent shift towards machine learning and ai. Although the topics of machine learning were included it was more theoretical and I feel tools should be taught to leverage the technology. Mostly it was great but some data analytics tools required in job weren't taught enough I feel. For example, We were taught SQL using R studio. But not any other applications that are actually used in the market.
Exams
It varies from the time I had taken admission. It was pandemic time and almost all the universities had waived of GRE and other tests as admission requirements. I took IELTS and my score was 7.5. I had to submit an SOP as well as two LORs. The key points included the experience, the projects I worked upon and internships I did and also the academics. I did not have to give an interview as the process was mostly online and my suggestion to ace such rounds would be have a clear idea of why and what you want to pursue and if it's relevant to your skills and aspirations. If you have any skills that would add value to the work that you are wanting to do under a professor or in any department.
Placement
Market is very volatile and currently been at its lowest in the past few years. Especially business analytics isn't a completely divergent course. The data analytics part is fairly related to programming and the business courses are easily learnt by students if they have a knack for it. Students with no prior experience would be applying for entry level positions and face challenges due to intense competition.
Internship
I did not get a chance to do an internship during my course as I didn't know the market here. Students need to start applying for jobs and early on unlike what I've seen in India. Applications open as early as 6-8 months prior to the internship and it's similar for the job applications as well.
Fees
48 credit hours. And each credit hour costed about $1,125. And other athletic fees and extracurricular fees, city transit pass, and other miscellaneous fees.
Scholarship
Yes I have received $5,000 scholarship and it's received by almost all of the students by default in my batch.
Faculty
The faculty was amazing for some subjects and I had thoroughly enjoyed the learning for many subjects while a couple of the subjects had terrible ones. The over all experience was good as luckily I had only two such professors who were not considerate.
Campus Life
The campus is wonderful and that's still an understatement. There are many activities happening all around the year. Also many students miss on most of them as a lot would be happening in the main campus but a lot of the masters degree classes are conducted at the loop campus. It has its fair share of events too. But due to online classes many of them miss these and that a bad thing. I suggest students interact with other nationals and start networking early on.
Hostel
I am actually working on creating awareness on this as it's something that a lot of students do not understand before they come here. At least most of the students in my network had no clue. Most of the students share their housing. Chicago being a beautiful city, also has an issue with frequent crimes. Gun violence is so frequent. In India women are suggested to not travel alone in nights. The practical reality is most of my male friends don't dare go out alone in night in the neighborhood we stay in. Some of the neighborhoods are wonderful but quite expensive for a lot of the students. Some of the neighborhood are not so. So students need to do some research before coming here. Many things need to be known regarding the lease, applying for the utilities like gas and electricity and more. Students should be aware and also prepared to do these. Also buying stuff, managing food and more. Many students who haven't stayed in sharing spaces usually face a lot of issues as they are simply not prepared for this. Students should know this is NOT HOME and should take care of themselves.
