Putting business in business analytics. Data have become ubiquitous, unlocking the insights they hold a strategic challenge for just about every organization. To cater to the increasing demand from organizations for graduates with business analytics skills Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University has developed a highly innovative, multidisciplinary master programme called MSc BA Business Analytics & Management (henceforth BAM).This challenging new master programme will educate students to understand, solve, and communicate relevant business problems, using the latest advances in businessanalytics. Understanding of the business problems is enhanced through domain-specific courses. The training on analytics, statistics,and machine learning in our ambitious programme is driven and taught by domain-specific experts at the forefront of their fields. The programme provides a broad and integrated business perspective together with ample opportunity for specialisation. More information about the programme can be found here. Figure 1 provides a schematic overview of the programme, highlighting the Thesis & Internship trajectory (see figure 1 here)

Thesis & Internship course. As part of the curriculum students have to write an individual thesis. Students are stimulated to do this in combination with an internship. Students are allowed to find their own internship but as RSM faculty we also actively solicit interesting thesis internships, among others by distributing this document. The study load for the thesis is 448 hours. As Figure 1 illustrates students have progressively more time to work on their thesis between February and June 15 (the thesis hand-in deadline).

In terms of internships we have the following requirements for the BAM programme:
- The student should be able to spend most (if not all) time on the thesis research;
- The student should be able to apply advanced analytics (diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive) and/or advanced data solutions (e.g., blockchain) to an interesting problem;
- The organization should have the resources to supervise the student (in addition to the academic supervisor and co-reader that are appointed by RSM);
- It is possible to make the data for the thesis research available within the time frame of the internship and well before the thesis deadline;
- The research problem should be both of importance for the company and have academic relevance;
- Students should be able to make their thesis research publicly available, with the possibility of masking sensitive data of the organization.

Why host an internship? Hosting an internship means access to a student in possession of state-of-the art business analytics knowledge and skills, supported through academic supervision by faculty of one of Europe’s premier business schools. This combination provides your organization with a unique opportunity to tackle an advanced analytics problem in your organization. In addition, it provides you with access to a pool of highly talented potential employees.

Procedure for providing internships. When your organization is interested please send a one-pager that describes your organization, your analytics challenges, and the procedure for students to apply for the internship to [email protected]. After reviewing your internship, we will post it on our intranet for all BAM students to see. In case we have questions, we may reach out to you. To this end please provide your email address and telephone number of a contact person. We look forward to receiving your internship(s) as soon as possible.

Apply HERE.