Introduction to MSDIS@UFL

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Program overview:
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8 d$ G' m. `; K7 YToday's business leaders must draw from a variety of disciplines in order to become effective decision-makers. The Master of Science degree in Decision and Information Sciences (DIS) is designed to provide students with computing, quantitative and applications skills vital to a business problem-solving setting. The DIS program requirements span traditional academic disciplines to produce a multi-disciplinary major. DIS graduates typically fill such positions as Decision Support Specialist, Information Systems Specialist and Systems Analyst.

. N7 m5 j) ?4 _2 Y4 c" S- PStudents from a variety of backgrounds, including business administration and engineering, enroll in the M.S. program. Students without a business background may need an additional semester in the program. There is no thesis requirement and no option to write a thesis in place of required course work. Students may choose a track in either information technology or supply chain management.
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" q. A9 Q2 n) tThe M.S. program consists of a minimum of 36 credit hours. Normally, these credit hours are obtained within three fall/spring semesters of study (a year and a half). However, in the College of Business, graduate programs are organized in a modular system. The modular system allows students to focus intensely on course content over an eight-week period with a week break in between.
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7 _/ c. n, c6 mPrerequisites
There are no prerequisites to the program. However, students without a business background may need additional course work to meet prerequisites for some of the required courses.
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3 M3 b& J' ?7 {- {, d5 |( zDegree:
8 @2 N1 Z$ E+ kAll applicants must have a previous bachelor's degree, master's degree or doctoral degree from an accredited college or university, or an equivalent as determined by the UF Office of Admission's evaluation of official transcripts.
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7 `1 H) Q, t1 l. M) T5 g( WGrade Point Average:
& N( T- K6 D; vUS applicants, or applicants who graduated from an accredited US college or university, must have an upper division undergraduate grade point average of 3.00 or higher. In the case of non-US applicants, the UF Office of Admission will determine degree equivalency.
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  ^* r3 I7 }( I+ {  Q7 X% xGMAT/GRE Score:
The ISOM Department requires that applicants take all portions of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) or the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). You may email Chandra Hardy for the latest minimal GMAT/GRE score requirements. Please visit MBA.com or GRE.org for test preparation materials, to register for one of the tests or to forward your official score to UF using the institution code of 5812. In addition, please hand-deliver or mail the department a copy of the official score report that you receive in the mail approximately two weeks after taking the test. Please do not fax the score report. Since it can take up to eight weeks for the Admissions Office to process your test score, it is important to allow for this delay by taking the exam well in advance of the application deadline.

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How s the course at the college..
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5 Z; t: T  x2 d) @The program is pretty good.Little different than a regular MIS program. It has a lot of emphasis on Decision Analysis and similar courses.
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' D# }- J3 Q. Y4 p% b& }Hows the faculty

Faculty is really good. Most of them are highly qualified.You can check their profiles at the website.

0 d) y9 S8 }' t9 q% N6 |" k+ HIs there any Aid available
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! Q- D; y. r+ Q$ g+ c$ f& L8 pAid scene is poor in the department. Only the PhD students get aid.But there are oportunities outside the department.
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9 R8 X* w* I2 ~6 [% p8 u4 YWhats the placement scene like
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# Q# n+ `; C# v; U% A+ g; R  f8 nPlacement: 90% prior to graduation
Average starting salary: $57,500
8 q+ d/ G3 V3 C0 k( E4 ~' }Average signing bonus: $3,000

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PwC, KPMG, Delloitte, E&Y, Citigroup, etc.

About PwC, they recruit heavily from DIS. They were the highest recruiter for the whole of UF in the last recruiting season. Other 3 of the Big 4 recruit a lot of DIS students recruit considerable number of DIS students too.

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Scenario related to job and internship

This is a tricky question for me now guys. UF is the largest school in the SE region and thus attract the best of companies nationwide as well as in the SE region. Therefore, I cannot deny the fact that there are ample opportunities. The DIS as a program is very popular in the SE region and most of the big corporations in the SE region recruit heavily from UF in general and few companies from DIS in particular. The companies who specifically look for DIS students are PwC, KPMG, Delloitte, E&Y, Citigroup, Accenture, Exonmobil, Morgan Stanley, Merill Lynch, GE, etc. These companies have specific positions and job profiles for DIS students. Now the sad fact is because of our Visa Status its difficult for us to get into most of the above companies. PwC, Delloitte, E&Y, Morgan Stanley, Merill Lynch, etc do recruit international students. So opportunities are still there but its a tough competition.

( R- Y, U" B9 ~  @% C1 [$ mBesides these companies there are lot of companies who may not know about DIS in specific but has job profiles that suit DIS grads. So for these companies you will have to do a research on your own for specific positions and then apply for those positions. For example, there is this company called Rockwell Collins who hire Systems Analysts but don't know about DIS. I heard about that position through one of my contacts and then applied for the same.

Internship search is a lot of work on your own. The university does help you in getting the necessary resources to you mostly through the career fair and the Career Resource Center.

* z! q( x  |4 p1 \Now I will present my case. I applied to a lot of companies through the career fair. The bigger corps have a structured internship program for which they start recruiting really early. Now I did 2 rounds of interviews with PwC, Deloitte and Morgan Stanley. I did not get any of them.
Beyond that I did have a lot of phone interviews in process and few online applications. I am yet to get an offer.
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Lot of international students got offers but many haven't got any. Internships are always a difficult deal in most universities. Lot of luck. People with IT experience have an edge though. The deal with internships is that there are very few positions offered. If there 10 full time employees hired then pretty much there may be 2 intern hires.

The DIS Dept offers an unpaid internship with an in house company called the Bridges. They implement Peoplesoft ERP. This is a good learning experience but the problem is that it is unpaid.
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% |9 n1 U1 p# U6 ]% v8 D$ \Now full time is definitely easier. Almost everyone gets an offer. Like all the DIS people I know of had offers before they graduated. So for full time everyone will be fine unless........X Factor.
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So the bottom line is : There are opportunities but you should be smart enough to grab them. Internship are way difficult compared to full time positions.
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Phew!!! I hope this helps. Do let me know if you guys have more queries.
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% u! e8 {; E9 H' V3 TCourses description:
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To state the differences between the DIS program and other conventional MIS programs, I would say that the DIS program has about 12 credits of courses on Quantitative, Statistical and Data Analysis. These skills are highly regarded by the consulting companies. I personally feel that these courses hone your analytical skills which is very important in this profession. Most entry level consultant positions are actually Analyst type of roles.
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The details of the courses
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1. Managerial Quantitative Analysis: A 4 credit course with a good learning curve. The amount learned is really high. It starts from Linear programming and ends in queuing theory. It uses Excel as the most important tool. It also uses Crystal Ball for Simulations, Tree Plan for Decision Analysis, etc.
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$ {4 }1 |& U1 `4 a* T2. Managerial Statistical Analysis: Deals with statistical analysis of data sets, etc. It uses a statistical package called Minitab.

$ W1 \' d) S% S& l3. Data Analysis: Mostly deals with some tools and Application of Data Mining fundamentals.

" ^) Q- g! O$ I/ D, _4. Project Management: Self explanatory. Uses MS Project, etc.

8 M$ v% \* H4 m" i7 J7 D: ]- OBesides these the program has courses that deals with Business Application Development using Java and .Net, Business Objects, Database design and implementation and System Analysis and Design. The above courses are a part of most MIS programs.

The point to note is that there aren't any General Management courses in this program unlike other MIS programs. Personally, I don't see any reason in doing general management courses as most of us will be taking up entry level positions.
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+ t5 A0 f- y! U: KFinally, this program has its pros and cons. Its a well structured (quite inflexible) program. Its up to you to weigh your options based on your requirements.
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  y! r; F! _- [$ cAdvise from a MSDIS graduate student:

Everyone,

8 V# P3 Q0 b4 w! m0 b- T5 zI have gone through the whole process of application some 18 months ago. I truly understand that everyone has their share of misgivings and thus seek advice from current students. I did e-mail a lot of people in regard to that. In most cases I got responses from the student but there are times when prospective students go overboard. Please understand that there is a thin line that separates the "inquisitive and interested in the program" behavior and "plain annoying" behavior.
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8 s7 C2 @7 X# j2 B0 i2 C2 C( JAfter finding prospective students on public forums and social networking websites limit your conversation to a few of them. Don't do things like sending e-mails and messages to all students in the program. Words spread out really fast and you will end up earning a "@#$%" reputation for yourself much before reaching the destination.

Its just a Masters program. You cannot expect to predict everything beforehand. Don't deal it like its a problem on Simulation. It will totally defeats the purpose. We all did it. We all had our share of tough time and eventually learned. There are a few things meant to be learned the hard way. So let be.

$ }0 n9 T7 n, ^Finally, limit your queries to pertinent information. Graduate studies are really exacting and takes a toll on you. So do not waste a current students time by inquiring about information that can be easily gathered from the program's web site or the Yahoo Group for that year. Instead ask something that might really make a difference in your decision making.
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; o& H5 ?$ s+ O- ?This are not just my opinion but of a lot of other students too. My friends in other universities have a similar take on this too.
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7 k0 |5 U! I" |May, 2007


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) b* F: W8 k/ o6 P: ^下面附件里面还有很多详细的数据以及UFL商学院其它专业的情况，希望能够对大家有用！



. S8 w7 u% N6 X- I* L1 f5 \[ 本帖最后由 wgaggassi34 于 2008-2-19 12:50 编辑 ]