Students from the Weatherhead School of Management Master of Business Analytics and Intelligence program will present the results of their summer internship and business projects on Sept. 29, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., in the lower level of the Peter B. Lewis Building.
For each internship or research project, students were assigned both a mentor and supervisor from a corporate partner or Weatherhead faculty to help guide them. These projects showcase how the analytical skills acquired in the classroom are effectively applied to solve real-world business challenges.
Get to know some of the students who will be presenting on Sept. 29 and learn more about their summer projects:
Alex Torres
Alex Torres, a fifth-year undergraduate student in the Integrated Master of Business Analytics and Intelligence program, worked with United Airlines in Chicago over the summer through an internship on the supply chain analytics team within the Technical Operations Department. Read more about his internship:
What is something you learned in the classroom that you were able to apply at your internship?
I was able to apply the structured query language (SQL) skills that I learned at the workshop Case Western Reserve University offered to us last semester. The skills in SQL came in handy over the summer as a majority of our work was to be done in SQL. I believe that learning SQL prior to my internship at United Airlines made the transition much easier for me as I could hit the ground running on my projects with minimal help required from my team.
What will be the biggest takeaway from your poster presentation on Sept. 29?
The biggest takeaway from my poster presentation is that it is important to have good management of the dashboards so that a company may do effective analysis on certain business areas. Without proper management, it would lead to a highly inefficient process of making any kind of changes to the frontend or backend of any dashboard that has been made. By having proper management of your dashboards, you will be able to apply more of your time to doing actual analysis rather than trying to find the necessary files to make any small change to a certain dashboard.
Anything else you’d like to share about this experience?
I had a very positive experience at United Airlines this summer, as I had a good relationship with my team and other interns, as well as I got to take advantage of the flight benefits we were given this summer. I was able to travel to countries, such as Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Canada, just to name a few. I also got to travel in first class for three of my long-haul flights and flew 52,000 miles this summer. The entire experience that I had during the summer was amazing as I had all these benefits, a great work environment, and most importantly, did work that made me feel like I was making a real impact.
Yuxin Jin
Second-year business analytics and intelligence student Yuxin Jin worked on a project over the summer on “Airbnb Customer Review Analysis in Columbus,” along with her peers, Chuchu Jin and Yueyang Wu (pictured left). Their supervisor for the project was Weatherhead Assistant Professor of Design and Innovation Hyowon Kim. Read more about their project:
What was the focus of your project?
Our project focused on improving Airbnb performance in Columbus through analysis of the reviews of each Airbnb host. To analyze the reviews, we did the natural language processing (NLP) by building the latent dirichlet allocation (LDA) model to see which topics the customers care most about. Based on the model, we analyze the correlation between topics and variances to see if we can help with more precise improvements.
What is something you learned in the classroom that you were able to apply on this project?
Data processing. Because the main part of the project is NLP, which we haven’t learned in classes before summer, we mainly learned that by ourselves. At the same time, Professor Hyowon helped us a lot in this area.
What will be the biggest takeaway from your poster presentation on Sept. 29?
The primary takeaway from our poster presentation will be the insightful use of NLP techniques, specifically the LDA model, to analyze Airbnb reviews in Columbus. Through our analysis, we have identified the topics that matter most to customers when evaluating Airbnb hosts. Our research will shed light on the key factors that drive customer satisfaction and highlight potential areas for precise improvements in Airbnb performance. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how data-driven approaches can enhance the hosting experience and contribute to better customer outcomes in the sharing economy.
Anything else you’d like to share about this experience?
All of my team members and Professor Hyowon were really nice to work with on this project and they are all hard-working individuals. All of us did our best to explore something new and meaningful, not just to complete the project, but also to make our project have some practical meaning.
Bhargav Bhalodi
Over the summer, second-year business analytics and intelligence student Bhargav Bhalodi interned with Calamos Investments in Naperville, Illinois, as a business intelligence intern. While there, he worked with the business intelligence team to assist with and contribute to the team’s business intelligence projects used for data-driven decision making across the company by analyzing and manipulating large data sets to generate and provide actionable insights to stakeholders in the company. Read more about his internship:
What is something you learned in the classroom that you were able to apply at your internship?
I used several tools and technologies such as structured query language (SQL) and Python learned in the classroom at my internship. Additionally, data manipulation techniques and methodologies that I learned in the classroom were also extremely useful at my internship.
Based on my classroom experience with Tableau, a data visualization tool, I was able to enhance my knowledge of a similar tool—PowerBI, very quickly at my internship. This allowed me to amplify my team’s output by assisting and taking on tasks involving PowerBI. And based on the classroom knowledge I gained about financial equities, securities and more, I was able to understand industry terminology and comprehend datasets fairly quickly at my internship, given my internship was with an investment firm.
What will be the biggest takeaway from your poster presentation on Sept. 29?
My poster presentation provides a detailed overview of my internship experience, including significant projects that I worked on and skills that I used and learned. My presentation also describes how data-driven decisioning is used in the investment industry based on my internship experience with manipulating large datasets to provide necessary analytical insights to respective stakeholders. It also explains how databases stored in cloud technologies, such as Azure Databricks can be connected to visualization tools, such as PowerBI to establish a company-wide analytical reporting framework. SQL, PowerBI M and PowerBI DAX can be used to pre-process and manipulate the datasets to generate the insightful PowerBI reports within this framework, which is another important element of my poster presentation.
From my poster presentation, people can also learn about stakeholder engagement which is an integral part of any business analyst/business intelligence role, since these roles serve as a vital link between the technology/data team and the other stakeholders within an organization. The biggest takeaways from my poster presentation will involve a comprehensive explanation of how Azure Databricks, PowerBI and SQL can be used for empowering business stakeholders with data-driven insights used for decision-making.
Anything else you’d like to share about this experience?
My summer internship experience has been extremely valuable to me as I got an opportunity to work with so many talented people. I was able to learn and enhance my knowledge of both the technologies used in a business intelligence role and the skills essential for engaging with various stakeholders for respective analytical needs. As such, my internship experience provided me with real-world experience for the types of career roles that I intend to pursue.
Kimi Chou
Second-year business analytics and intelligence student Kimi Chou had the opportunity to intern as a business data analyst at Upbound Group in Plano, Texas. In this role, she worked on projects leveraging structured query language (SQL), Python, Power BI and other technologies to extract insights from digital marketing and customer data. Key projects included developing attribution models to calculate marketing ROAS, creating reports to analyze website performance and building machine learning models to predict customer fraud risks. In addition to sharpening her analytics and technical skills through these projects, she also said she strengthened her critical thinking, communication and leadership abilities. Learn more about her experience:
What is something you learned in the classroom that you were able to apply at your internship?
My coursework provided a robust foundation to take on new data challenges during my internship. The data mining techniques I learned for building models, tuning hyperparameters, and handling imbalanced classes were directly applicable when developing fraud prediction models. Additionally, knowledge in advanced SQL querying and database design enabled easier extraction and manipulation of marketing data for attribution and reporting. The analytical rigor honed through class projects was invaluable. I leveraged a structured, end-to-end approach focused on exploring data, developing methodology and clearly communicating insights. This problem-solving process and commitment to analytical excellence is something I will continue to apply in my career.
What will be the biggest takeaway from your poster presentation on Sept. 29?
The biggest takeaway from my poster is demonstrating how data analytics empowers better marketing decisions. I aim to showcase applications of SQL queries, digital reporting, and predictive modeling on real business problems during my internship. Viewers will learn how these techniques help optimize resource allocation, boost campaign performance and predict customer fraud to mitigate default risks. Overall, the presentation illustrates the value of data-driven decision-making in marketing through practical examples and actionable insights.
Anything else you’d like to share about this experience?
This internship enabled me to develop critical soft skills and enhance creative problem-solving when brainstorming across teams. I also had fantastic experiences with my fellow interns, including networking with executives, volunteering and team-building activities. These opportunities helped build connections and round out the technical training with key interpersonal competencies. I'm grateful for the well-rounded experience that taught me vital soft and professional skills.