M.S. in Business Analytics Capstone
Gain Real-World Experience and Address Business Challenges
In the Capstone Project for Georgetown McDonough’s M.S. in Business Analytics (MSBA) program, you’ll apply the concepts, methods, and tools learned in the program to a challenging business analytics problem with a local, national, or global organization.
Over the course of two semesters, you’ll work with Georgetown’s faculty advisors and a group of other MSBA students to:
- Define an organizational challenge.
- Collect and analyze necessary data.
- Assess possible courses of action.
- Make a recommendation to the organization.
- Present actionable insights to partners and McDonough faculty.
As you move through the Capstone Project, you’ll hone your skills with analytics tools, business functions, computing and technology, and value-based data analytics. Your experience from the Capstone Project will help you to stand out from other applicants as you seek to establish or advance your career.
“Graduates are going to show readiness to use data science in real life. They will be able to add this to their resume, show it to employers, and even use it to start a career. The Capstone Projects will be drawn from real-world problems and may be conducted with both industry and academic partners.”
Sudipta Dasmohapatra, MSBA Academic Director and Professor
MSBA Curriculum
The curriculum for Georgetown McDonough’s MSBA program includes a total of 18 courses, and each course lasts seven weeks. Part of the curriculum is a two-course Capstone Project, which will begin mid-residency and end with a final project presentation to a partner company/organization prior to graduation.
Selected Capstone Partner Organizations
We have some great partner organizations for you to work with on your projects. Below are just a few of the groups our students have worked with.
- Capco Consulting
- Dovel Technologies
- Deloitte Consulting
- Elutions
- Gray Associates
- Marriott International
- The Census Bureau
- US Green Building Council
- Virtus Investment Partners
Capstone Project Timeline
Rather than moving toward a prescribed outcome, the Capstone Project and its goals should mimic the workplace by emerging organically from insights based on the data collected. To pace the Capstone Project appropriately, student groups adhere to the following timeline of project milestones.
| Project Milestone | Timing of Milestone |
|---|---|
| Kick-off the project with your company/organization | Spring residency |
| Define the scope of the project and prioritize your objectives | Month 1 |
| Conduct a background review and collect data | Month 1-2 |
| Integrate, explore, and analyze your data Develop an analytical plan | Months 3–4 |
| Review the project at its halfway point (mid-project presentation) | At the end of Capstone Course I |
| Analyze data and build models | Months 3–6 |
| Validate models and create final deliverables including dashboards, apps, etc. | Months 6–7 |
| Report on the final project | By the end of month 8 |
| Final presentation to your company/organization | At the end of Capstone Course II |
Project Advisors
The Capstone Project will be overseen by the program leadership including the program manager. Other relevant MSBA and Georgetown faculty experts will serve as project mentors, as needed.
- Faculty Team: Professors Sudipta Dasmohapatra and Gregory Lyon
Professor Sudipta Dasmohapatra
Sudipta Dasmohapatra is the academic director of the M.S. in Business Analytics (MSBA) and professor of the practice at the McDonough School of Business. She has worked with numerous industry partners and government and non-profit organizations on a variety of business analytics projects.
She has over 10 years of experience consulting in analytics and data science and served on the advisory boards of two strategic analytics start-up firms— Vertaeon, Inc. based in Atlanta, and Kloutics, Inc., based in Pune, India. She joined the board of the Statistical and Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), an NSF-funded math and statistics institute, in July 2018 as the associate director of diversity. She holds a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.
Professor Gregory Lyon
Dr. Lyon is the Assistant Director for the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) and Assistant Teaching Professor in Business Analytics at the McDonough School of Business. He has served as a data science consultant for projects ranging from survey research to global workforce development to regulatory compliance and has taught programming, analytics, and data science to students of all levels, including graduate students and working professionals. Dr. Lyon also holds multiple certifications in cloud computing and analytics including AWS cloud architecture (SAA-C02) as well specialized AWS cloud certifications in machine learning (MLS-C01) and data analytics (DAS-C01). Prior to Georgetown, he earned his Ph.D. at Rutgers University and was a postdoctoral researcher in data science and survey research at Tufts University.
Capstone Partnership Opportunities
The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University is always seeking additional partners for the MSBA Capstone Project. The MSBA program accepts proposals each spring for additional Capstone Project partner organizations.
“These Capstone Projects will be conducted with industry, government, or academic partners in any field you can imagine, from healthcare to retail to financial services to education. The Capstone Project teams will consist of student members who will be carefully selected into their teams based on the needs of the project.”
Sudipta Dasmohapatra, MSBA Academic Director and Professor
By becoming a partner for an MSBA Capstone Project, your company can provide a real-world learning experience for Georgetown students while working through data-driven solutions to your unique challenges.
Download a PDF for more details about the benefits of a Capstone Project partnership.
For more information about how organizations can get involved with Georgetown University, visit https://msb.georgetown.edu/corporate-partnerships/
Contact Our MSBA Team
MSBAadmissions@georgetown.edu
Call Today: (202) 729-9995