Virtual Open House MS in Data Analytics Engineering Transcript

George Mason Online Admissions: Good evening, everybody. My name is

Susan. I’m an Enrollment Coordinator on behalf of George Mason, and we’re

here tonight for the online Masters of Data Analytics of Engineering,

along with the Graduate Certificate.

George Mason Online Admissions: And very fortunate to be joined with Dr.

Baldo and Mr. Schmidt

George Mason Online Admissions: who, so Dr. Baldo is the program

director, Mr. Schmidt is, the assistant program director, and also the

academic advisor, Mary Baldwin. So, I’m thrilled to have them here, and

we’re gonna go ahead and kick it off in a few minutes.

George Mason Online Admissions: If you can let me know in the chat

whether you can hear me okay or not, I’d appreciate it.

George Mason Online Admissions: And thank you for joining us.

George Mason Online Admissions: And if you can also mention where you’re

joining us from.

George Mason Online Admissions: I guess everybody’s being very shy,

because I see the participants, but nobody’s answering.

Jim Baldo: There we go.

George Mason Online Admissions: So, I assume you can hear me okay.

George Mason Online Admissions: Oh, somebody.

George Mason Online Admissions: There we go.

George Mason Online Admissions: Thank you. Oh, wow! Well, thank you so

much for joining for all the way from Ghana, that’s amazing, thank you.

Mary Baldwin: Looks like we have some local folks from Virginia, too. Hi,

everybody.

George Mason Online Admissions: Oh, yep.

George Mason Online Admissions: Thanks for joining.

George Mason Online Admissions: So we’re just giving it a little bit of

time to let everybody join.

George Mason Online Admissions: And then we’ll go ahead and get started.

George Mason Online Admissions: So last time I checked, we had 15

registrants.

George Mason Online Admissions: And right now, we have about 10, so

thanks for joining us.

Mary Baldwin: Did you want to start, or should we wait for some of the

rest of the people to come in?

Jim Baldo: No, I think… I think we can get started. I think that’ll…

that’ll be fine.

George Mason Online Admissions: Okay. Again, my name is Susan. I’m an

Enrollment Coordinator on behalf of George Mason, and we’re here tonight

for the Online Masters of Data Analytics of Engineering, as well as the

Graduate Certificate in the Data Analytics of Engineering.

George Mason Online Admissions: And I’m here to assist with the

application process. So if you have any questions on that, let me know.

And we’re joined here with the program director, and…

George Mason Online Admissions: Assistant Program Director and Academic

Advisor for the program.

George Mason Online Admissions: And so, they’re here to answer all your

questions.

George Mason Online Admissions: So thanks again for joining us.

George Mason Online Admissions: So, the agenda for this evening is to

meet our wonderful presenters, and why should you do this program?

George Mason Online Admissions: The driving forces behind data analytics,

Details on the curriculum.

George Mason Online Admissions: Industry trends, the online classroom.

George Mason Online Admissions: And of course, admissions requirements

and Q&A. And feel free to post your questions, In the Q&A session.

George Mason Online Admissions: Throughout, or through the chat.

George Mason Online Admissions: We won’t be really raising our hand here.

George Mason Online Admissions: But through the Q&A.

George Mason Online Admissions: And without further ado, Dr. Baldo, would

you like to kick us off?

Jim Baldo: Sure, sure. Well, first, I’d like to welcome all of our

attendees here this evening. Thank you for coming on to get some insights

into our program, Data Analytics Engineering. A little bit about myself.

Jim Baldo: I spent… I have about 40-plus years of industry experience,

before I became a full-time associate professor, at George Mason

University.

Jim Baldo: I was, I was at…

Jim Baldo: Adjunct professor here for about 19 years, as well.

Jim Baldo: I recently moved the program, down to Mason Square, so I just

wanted… because if I forget to tell you that, that’s not… that is part of

the background here. So we’re down… the program now is down in the

Arlington, campus in the new fuse building that we have there.

Jim Baldo: So I worked in industry. I spent, 15 years at, at Oracle. I’ve

spent, a number of years supporting, commercial industry,

Jim Baldo: government, and defense.

Jim Baldo: So I have, a diverse background with respect to, Software and

data analytics.

Jim Baldo: I’ve been, I’m still a practicing engineer,

Jim Baldo: So, we, my experience base right now, as director of the

program, is primarily focused… I spend most of my time these days with

data, handling data.

Jim Baldo: Still do analytics, no question about that.

Jim Baldo: But data has been the key, focus, and we’ll talk a little bit

more about that as we go further. I have… I have a PhD from George Mason

University.

Jim Baldo: It’s in information technology.

Jim Baldo: I have a master’s in engineering and computer engineering from

the University of South Florida.

Jim Baldo: And I have, a master’s and an undergraduate degree in

chemistry. So my, my pathway is,

Jim Baldo: In some cases, similar to a number of the students that are in

this program.

Jim Baldo: Not all of our students come from engineering backgrounds. Not

all come from computer science backgrounds. Some come from math,

chemistry, biology.

Jim Baldo: We have folks that come in with, business or accounting-type

degrees as well. So, that is the interesting aspect of data analytics

engineering, or analytics in general, is that it comes in with people

with,

Jim Baldo: diverse backgrounds.

Jim Baldo: With that, I’ll turn it over to my,

Jim Baldo: Great Assistant Director, Professor Bernie Schmidt.

Bernard Schmidt: Thank you, Dr. Baldo.

Bernard Schmidt: Like Dr. Baldo, I have a background in industry. I have

had over 35 years in industry before becoming an academic myself. 15

years ago, started as a professor of IT at Northern Virginia Community

College, joined George Mason

Bernard Schmidt: Five years ago, all my degrees are from Mason. I have an

undergraduate in computer science.

Bernard Schmidt: Master’s in Applied IT, and a Master’s in Data Analytics

Engineering. I was actually one of the first students in the program when

it first started. I graduated from the program in 2017, and was recruited

by Dr. Baldo in 2020 to be his assistant director.

Bernard Schmidt: I’m also the capstone Coordinator, so after you’ve

completed

Bernard Schmidt: the 9 courses in your program. The 10th course is the

capstone, and

Bernard Schmidt: When you get angry at me… angry at all the work you have

to do in the capstone, you can blame me for that.

Bernard Schmidt: The idea behind the capstone course is to prepare

students for real world. It’s… it’s not a… it’s a capstone course, it’s…

it’s… that is unlike any other at the university. I… I solicit real-world

data analytics projects from

Bernard Schmidt: a number of, capstone partners. Last spring, we had 40

capstone, projects.

Bernard Schmidt: This fall, we have 24, we’ll have another 24 this

spring.

Bernard Schmidt: And our partners range anywhere from, Pearman Sellers

Winery in Northern Virginia to,

Bernard Schmidt: Two of our partners are based out of Europe. Erasmus.ai,

that developed ClimateGPT, is one of our partners, as is GaiaViz, who is

based outside of Paris, France. So, we have a…

Bernard Schmidt: variety of partners, both industry, academic, as well as

non-profit that we work with. But the whole idea behind the capstone

course is that you work on a real-world data analytics project. It’s very

labor-intensive. It’s almost like a part-time job in that sense.

Bernard Schmidt: But you gain a lot of valuable experience, as taking

part of that, so…

Bernard Schmidt: I’ll turn it over to you, Mary, then, as our third

person here.

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, hi everybody, I’m Mary Baldwin-Sloop. I’m the

Graduate Academic Advisor for the Data Analytics Engineering Masters and

the Data Analytics Certificate.

Mary Baldwin: Just so you know, I actually come more from a social

sciences background. I work… my graduate degree is in linguistics, so

language data, NLP, computational linguistics, that’s kind of my jam, the

thing I love talking about. And I’ve been professionally working in

student support for over a decade now, and have been working with this

program for quite a while. And so I love working with students from all

different backgrounds to kind of explore the diverse

Mary Baldwin: opportunities that are available within this program. And

I’m kind of the person you go to when you’re like, I have no idea who to

ask this question. You ask me that question, I help… I help you get an

answer.

Mary Baldwin: I think we’re good to go on? Yeah.

George Mason Online Admissions: Dr. Baldo, do you want to talk about

that?

Jim Baldo: Sure, sure. So, in terms of rankings,

Jim Baldo: We have made it up to the… in 2023, we did… we did make it in

the top 50 with, with online master’s engineering programs and U.S. News

and World Report. That was quite an accomplishment,

Jim Baldo: one of the things that I, would like to let you know is that

when Professor Schmidt said he was one of the first,

Jim Baldo: Students in the program. That was back… the program started

back in 2014.

Jim Baldo: And, we celebrated, last fall, our 10th year… our 10-year

anniversary as a program. And,

Jim Baldo: So, we’ve been getting a lot of, we’re getting a lot of,

notice, but this one was really great to be rated this high on the,

Jim Baldo: On the… the U.S. News & World Report. The… the way,

Jim Baldo: we have things structured, as Professor Schmidt was

mentioning,

Jim Baldo: We have, we’re a multidisciplinary program.

Jim Baldo: And this was a big push from the, the dean of the college, Dr.

Ken Ball. We have since, around 2019, we became a college, the College of

Engineering and Computing.

Jim Baldo: And then we broke up into two schools, School of Engineering

and the School of Computing. This program is in the School of

Engineering, because we are very focused on doing, performing

engineering-type activities.

Jim Baldo: But, because we’re multidisciplinary, we… we cut across, both

schools,

Jim Baldo: all the departments, we cut across all the departments, so we

have a very, very rich, number of… our course offering is very diverse,

very large. We have over 100 courses to select from. Now.

Jim Baldo: I do want to, because Mary will shout out here in a minute, we

don’t have 100 courses to offer on the online program, and the reason for

that is that the online program is asynchronous, and courses have to be,

Jim Baldo: Transformed into an asynchronous format, as well as they are

in session-based 8-week sessions, and they have to be condensed to fit

Jim Baldo: into the time frame and into the fact that they’re

asynchronous. But we do have a number of courses to offer online. And we

also go outside of the College of Engineering and Computing. We have

course offerings from the Business School, from our College of Health and

Policy.

Jim Baldo: And we continue to look for finding other areas where we can,

you know, work with other colleges and schools within the university. So,

it continues to evolve.

Jim Baldo: And I think one of the things that you have to keep in mind

with our program is that it is extremely diverse, and that you can

tailor, your needs

Jim Baldo: You can tell you your needs to…

Jim Baldo: quite a few things. I mean, so we’re extremely… it’s extremely

broad, and so it’s flexible for the… for the student.

Jim Baldo: The other aspect here, too, that was touched on earlier.

Jim Baldo: Was that because we cut across all these schools, we, we have

access to a large number of world-class, researchers, within

Jim Baldo: George Mason University. George Mason is the, largest

university, largest public university in Virginia, and,

Jim Baldo: We have… we’ve attracted some great faculty, in… in… in… in

the past, and they’re still here with us, and so that’s… that’s a great

advantage to learn.

Jim Baldo: from some of the best folks in their fields. A member of the

faculty, as Professor Schmidt had noted, including both Professor Schmidt

and myself, we have industry experience. The other thing that we have

here is our research centers.

Jim Baldo: On campus. Within the college, we have, we have a number of

research centers that actually work with industry and government. They

actually go off and compete for contracts, and there are cases when we

get pulled in

Jim Baldo: To work on those as well. So, the faculty are not just folks

doing basic research. In fact, Professor Schmidt and I are applied

researchers. So I think that is a… that’s an important thing to note.

Jim Baldo: When you consider us for a program.

Jim Baldo: The online program also offers a graduate certificate option.

Jim Baldo: Certificates, and this certificate is also under the umbrella.

We are… our program is SHIB approved, so that’s a big plus for us, or for

anyone getting a degree. That certificate is also under that umbrella of

being SHIB approved. So we have,

Jim Baldo: We’ve had a number of students who just… they want to come in,

they want to take the four foundation courses, which is all… the four

courses you have to take for the certificate.

Jim Baldo: And, and that’s good enough. They just wanted to get some

background, so they took the time to take the four courses.

Jim Baldo: Which you could do in two semesters.

Jim Baldo: But there’s always the option that if you can… if you want to

pursue the degree, those four courses count, and you just move on, you

register for the degree program, you know, you talk to Mary, and she’ll

work out a schedule for you, and then you can… you can continue to move

through.

Jim Baldo: I, I think that,

Jim Baldo: That type of a certificate is extremely valuable, and it also

can be acquired in a short period of time. So, in some cases, people have

found it as a career advantage, because on their resume, they’re able to

put the certificate on.

Jim Baldo: And also, some people use it that they’re not quite sure

exactly, what they want to do. So, hey, they go after the certificate.

Jim Baldo: And, you know, after they take the four courses, they can make

the decision of, hey, I think the program’s for me, or no, I think I have

enough, and this is good enough. But no pressure whatsoever. So it’s a

nice option to have.

Jim Baldo: Susan, why don’t we go to the next slide?

Jim Baldo: K.

Jim Baldo: So…

Jim Baldo: I guess, Mary, do you want to take a cut at this, and then

Professor Schmidt and I can chime in?

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, so I mean, we did talk a little bit about the program

being established earlier on. Obviously, data is proliferating in so many

venues, it needs to be analyzed, it can be used for so many goods, and

our program’s very broad, so when we talk about the kind of

Mary Baldwin: places that our students go, it could be in healthcare, it

could be in finance, you could be working for a tech company, and data is

kind of undergirding everything.

Mary Baldwin: So, it was created, and Bernie and Jim, Dr. Baldo and

Professor Schmidt can kind of expand on those goals, those professional

goals. But there is a growing need right now to be able to take

Mary Baldwin: All of these massive data sets to make them useful for, you

know, business decisions, for medical decisions, for, you know, risk

assessments, for, you know, improving supply chains.

Mary Baldwin: And so, that’s why the program was designed to be

interdisciplinary. That’s why it was designed to be flexible. That’s why

we’ve tried to make it accessible, even if you are in Ghana, or if you

are not physically able to come to campus, because we need, data

analytics engineering professionals in this growing field. We’ve been

working to implement and bring in more courses in

Mary Baldwin: deep learning, NLP, AI, the kind of modeling classes that

are really undergirding a lot of this work right now, into the online

program. We were talking about how there’s fewer courses than, like, the

full 100 plus on the on-campus, but I do think that we’ve worked to get

some of the most popular and most in-demand classes transferred to this

online format to make it accessible. And in terms of industry

Mary Baldwin: Again, I think Dr. Baldwin and Professor Schmidt will be

able to speak on this a bit more, but,

Mary Baldwin: It…

Mary Baldwin: it’s one of those things that’s constantly evolving, and

that’s why, as Dr. Baldo said, we’re constantly adding more courses,

we’re diversifying, we’re connecting with other departments, which means

connecting with other skill sets, so that students can become blended

engineers in this program and go out into a variety of fields. And job

growth, specifically, I think, Dr. Baldo, when we were talking last, was

it,

Mary Baldwin: systems, operations, kind of, positions that were growing a

lot. You showed me some stats recently. I think that’s what I was noting.

Jim Baldo: Yeah, and so, the reason the three of us will talk to this

slide here is that, when you come in contact with the advisor, such as,

like, Mary,

Jim Baldo: most people will talk about, you know, well, they’ll ask Mary,

or they’ll ask Professor Schmidt or myself, you know.

Jim Baldo: what’s the outlook from a job perspective, or what does this

program offer that other programs don’t? And I’ll say a few words on

that, but I wanted to have Professor Schmidt weigh in, because he

actually

Jim Baldo: Went through this program early on.

Jim Baldo: And there was a reason why he decided to go after this. It

wasn’t just that, hey, you know, I’m collecting degrees that I want to

put on my wall. There was a real reason as to why he was interested in

doing this, so I’m going to let him sort of give that, and this is all

part of the driving forces.

Jim Baldo: Mr.

Bernard Schmidt: Thank you, Dr. Baldo.

Bernard Schmidt: Yeah, it’s interesting. I never actually was going after

this degree. I already was a professor at Northern Virginia Community

College, but one of the adjunct instructors who actually teaches in our

program right now as well was teaching the first AIT580 course

Bernard Schmidt: Which was, the introductory course you take, and…

Bernard Schmidt: He invited me to participate in the course. He was doing

data analytics for a three-letter intelligence agency and couldn’t tell

me much about it. He was an instructor in my first master’s program, the

applied IT, so he invited me to attend.

Bernard Schmidt: And it was very fascinating. I found the AI T580 course

back then absolutely fascinating. And,

Bernard Schmidt: I was just gonna take another couple of courses just to

see what it was all about, and next thing I know, I’m 6 courses into a

10-course program, and had to decide to, actually enroll in the program.

Bernard Schmidt: I don’t recommend you wait that long, you’re supposed to

enroll after 4 courses as a non-degree student, but I… the whole concept

of data and data science resonated with me. In fact, there was Harvard

Business Review back in, I think, 2012,

Bernard Schmidt: Saying… said that data science was the, sexiest job that

was out there, and it’s only grown.

Bernard Schmidt: Dr. Baldo and Mary mentioned about artificial

intelligence. When I was in the program, we were not permitted to take

any AI courses, because they were only offered out of the computer

science program, and they were restricted to computer science graduate

and PhD students.

Bernard Schmidt: Since that time, the Applied IT program has,

Bernard Schmidt: created their own applied artificial intelligence

courses, which our students can enroll in in the online program. But even

more so, the capstone course

Bernard Schmidt: is very much an applied course, and that is where we are

unique in the university. In the last, you know, when large language

models hit the scene a couple years ago, you know, ChatGPT, Microsoft

Copilot, Claude, Anthropic Claude.

Bernard Schmidt: Mega Llama.

Bernard Schmidt: They were a novelty at first, but then they started

getting integrated into day-to-day operations, and that’s kind of where

we are today. Out of the 24…

Bernard Schmidt: capstone projects we have this semester, about half of

them deal with artificial intelligence in some way. In fact, there are at

least 5

Bernard Schmidt: capstones of…

Bernard Schmidt: teams, 5 capstone teams, that are actually working with

large language models right now. We have 4 teams working with Erasmus AI,

Bernard Schmidt: who, as I said, is the creator of ClimateGPT, and Dr.

Baldo is working with a team with another company, Capstone Company,

that’s involved in that as well. In fact, actually, there’s another one I

just…

Bernard Schmidt: Thought about is, one of my teams.

Bernard Schmidt: Is using a large language model to try to do… match

resumes to job postings, to enhance a job seeker’s chances of matching

more appropriate jobs from, say, jobs… from a job bank.

Bernard Schmidt: So, it’s become a very, very, hot area to study, and

you’re not going to find, courses typically in most universities that are

even teaching those concepts. It’s so still new.

Bernard Schmidt: And yet we’re able to incorporate them into our

capstones, and that’s invaluable, from my perspective, as well as Dr.

Baldo’s.

Bernard Schmidt: perspective. In fact, Dr. Baldo is a driving force for

having, for, for, working with me to, to include these new types of

capstone projects into our curriculum. He’s been very,

Bernard Schmidt: very supportive of that effort, so… and maybe you want

to add on to that, Dr. Baldu, as well.

Jim Baldo: Now, so I wanted to ask… To have you understand,

Jim Baldo: Professor Smith’s motivation to go into the program, and his

is not uncommon.

Jim Baldo: Okay, people have an interest, and also, and I wanted to have

Mary say a few things as well, because Mary will pick up on these sort of

things.

Jim Baldo: And it’s important for her to understand that, as an advisor,

to sort of help you make decisions on those… that big number of courses

that you’re going to select from.

Jim Baldo: So, I want to thank both of them for saying that. I’ll talk

about the industry trends when I get… my industry trends when I get to,

my slides. Professor Schmidt provided some… some

Jim Baldo: what he said is spot on. I mean, we are… we cannot ignore

these emerging technologies that are moving so fast. But I do want to

talk about the background for the program and why it was created. When it

was created, when the idea came up.

Jim Baldo: the original director, Bob Osgood,

Jim Baldo: sort of laid out this plan where he wanted to make this… there

are other data analytics programs across the country that are

specialized, like, in business, healthcare,

Jim Baldo: social sciences. But he wanted to… he was thinking to make a

unique program that was for the generalists, the general…

Jim Baldo: the general data analytics engineering. And we put engineering

on the end of that because we do deal with data, we do deal with

analytics, and we do deal with the visualization.

Jim Baldo: or producing the results that come out of our analytics. But

we also, underneath all of this, we do some engineering. We have to worry

about some of the things that Professor Schmidt was talking about.

Jim Baldo: and, you know, when you talk to your… when you talk to the

advisor, when you talk to Mary, there are certain courses that we take

that are… that are very much engineering-based.

Jim Baldo: So, the idea was to create a very unique program

Jim Baldo: And as of today, I mean, when this program started about 11

years ago, there’s not really… I have been unable to find a program

that’s similar, Data Analytics Engineering, that is a general,

broadspread, multidisciplinary, broadspread program.

Jim Baldo: So I think that is a really, really big advantage. It is not

to say that, hey, you shouldn’t pick a program that does, finance, you

shouldn’t pick, you know, or one that specializes in healthcare. Those

are good.

Jim Baldo: But the generalist, and it’s not a generalist because you

don’t know exactly what you want to do. As a generalist, as Professor

Schmidt had mentioned, there’s lots of different areas that you can

Jim Baldo: practice in. So you could be on a team, and most data

analytics engineering is team-based. So you could be on a team

Jim Baldo: you could be on a couple of teams at one time, because when I

practice, I am sometimes on a couple of teams. So you could be doing some

healthcare analytics, you could be doing some financial analytics, you

could be working in some very, very specialized,

Jim Baldo: domain that’s somewhat limited, but you can go off and apply

those general skills that you get from this program here. So, that was

why it was created.

Jim Baldo: And the background there was the need.

Jim Baldo: To produce the generalist, the generalist data and analytics

engineer.

Jim Baldo: So the question, is there a need for this program, today, in

today’s society? Absolutely.

Jim Baldo: when I consult around the Washington, D.C. area, I’m sometimes

on teams with my former students, which I just find… I’m ecstatic about

that. And the need is the generalist

Jim Baldo: Can view the broad spectrum of things that have to go on when

you’re performing data analytics.

Jim Baldo: Okay, so you can get involved with deploying the analytic, you

could get involved with the actual tuning of the… tuning of a model, and

as Professor Schmidt was talking about, you could get involved with

coming up with innovative ways to use new emerging technologies, like

LLMs.

Jim Baldo: So, you’re… you can be very, very flexible.

Jim Baldo: And lastly, what I will say is that with most engineering

domains, and this one is no different, we are all lifelong learners.

Jim Baldo: Professor Schmidt sort of hinted about that when he started in

the program. There were… the classes were focused in… with technologies

that were there. And now, over the years, over this decade of being in

existence, the university has also adapted.

Jim Baldo: New technologies into the program, as well as new analytics

that may have emerged, or new visualization techniques that have emerged.

Jim Baldo: So, Professor Schmidt had mentioned that in one of the

capstones, he mentioned that he’s worked… he has a partner called

Gaiavez, which is just outside of Paris.

Jim Baldo: They do, 3D dimension, 3D visualization on a 2D platform. So

basically, it looks sort of like a game engine.

Jim Baldo: Where you can… you can plot your data under this 3D space, and

you can move around. You can actually walk through the data, you can… you

can look at it from the top, from the bottom, from the sides. You… you

can slice things with it. It’s extremely cool. In fact, I was

Jim Baldo: 3 or 4 years ago, I wanted to take the Unity game engine and

use that to walk through my data, and here they had… they had already,

built this. So it’s been really, really great to have a tool that’s

there, that you don’t have to spend 2 years or 3 years trying to build

out. It’s there.

Jim Baldo: Okay.

Jim Baldo: Susan, I guess we better… Start to move here, okay.

Jim Baldo: And Mary, I’ll let you talk to this one.

Mary Baldwin: quickly go over, so in terms of the curriculum, it’s a 10-

course program for the master’s. 5 of those courses are our core courses.

Four of them you’ll do at the beginning, AIT580, CS504, OR531, STAT515.

That is your interdisciplinary introduction to different aspects of the

field, from modeling and visualization, to, you know, data mining, some,

Mary Baldwin: cloud computing, all kinds of good stuff. The capstone is

day in 690, that is the thing you do at the end, that’s that real-world

project that builds on all the information that you get through the rest

of your time. And I think the next slide has our concentration

information, right?

Mary Baldwin: Alright…

Mary Baldwin: So, those 5 classes are your core interdisciplinary study

and your capstone. Five of your courses will be your concentration. Now,

in the fully online program, these are currently all the classes we have

available.

Mary Baldwin: And so, it… you can’t do… we have 14 full concentrations on

ground.

Mary Baldwin: But most of our students do an individualized path of study

in the fully online program, just because it gives you the most

flexibility, like we were talking about, flexibility, that’s the key word

for this program, to pick and choose classes that will give you skill

sets that are going to be useful for you in your particular career path.

It is possible to do either our applied analytics concentration, which

would consist of classes from those IST electives you see over there.

Mary Baldwin: Or potentially the business analytics,

Mary Baldwin: as well, that is another potential option. But most of my

students do find they get the most in the online program of… by doing the

individualized path of study. And you would work in consultation with…

you get two supports in the online program. You get a success coach, and

you have your advisor, which is me.

Mary Baldwin: And we would work together each term to kind of figure out

what classes that are being offered fit your needs best. And that can

range from marketing research to

Mary Baldwin: digital forensics, so stuff on cybercrime and, networking

data, to issues of LLMs, or even decision and risk analysis. But yeah,

lots of options that you can kind of leverage throughout your time. I

think we can go on to the next one.

Jim Baldo: Okay, this is, some trends that I just want to briefly go

over, for you. So, about…

Jim Baldo: Three years ago, there became a, a shift.

Jim Baldo: In terms of, we were… We were centralizing our data as, You

know, back is…

Jim Baldo: you know, I would say now, 15 years ago, when we started to

migrate a lot of applications to the cloud.

Jim Baldo: The cloud enabled us to, with cheap storage, enable us in

centralization for access, to put a lot of data

Jim Baldo: into the cloud and make it accessible, so it was cheap. We

didn’t have to have… a business didn’t have to have a closet with a

server in it and a bank of drives and things like that.

Jim Baldo: Which was difficult. I mean, they had to upgrade… things would

go wrong, you had to have an admin, things would break in the middle of

the night, somebody would have to come in and log in and try and fix

things, or worse yet, if they couldn’t get in, they’d have to drive in.

Jim Baldo: So, with that movement, we started to create things that they

called this data lake.

Jim Baldo: And the data lakes were great, but they were also messy, and

they became very, very difficult. So then we started to see these things

called data…

Jim Baldo: Data lake houses. And eventually what, what happened is people

Jim Baldo: Wanted to see something that they could consume

Jim Baldo: But didn’t have to go into the data lake or the data lake

house, to pull all that data out every time they wanted to do a project.

So we started to build what were called data products. And this is still

ongoing.

Jim Baldo: Okay? And, Professor Schmidt and I are doing work in this

area, in fact.

Jim Baldo: we… I have a student in the program who I did some research,

since graduated, did some research,

Jim Baldo: With… in the fall of,

Jim Baldo: 2024 through our DAN 698 course, that was there that Mary had

up. That’s a research course that you can take from 1 to 3, 3 credit

hours. But we did some work with data products for a particular domain

that he’s involved with, and we have a follow-on contract to actually do

some more work with him.

Jim Baldo: But this data product is sort of interesting in the sense, is

that it can be defined, so there’ll be a specification for it.

Jim Baldo: And there’ll also be a contract.

Jim Baldo: for it as well. And… and…

Jim Baldo: And it’s… it has metadata that surrounds it, so it says this

is what it can do. It has a quality infused into it. It also has some…

some hooks in there for governance, like the privacy, the access

controls.

Jim Baldo: And… One of the really interesting things about this, this is

that it’s built

Jim Baldo: And it can be static, or it can be dynamic. So static is what

you might be used to. You got… you might say, hey, Jim, I already have

these CSV or these Excel spreadsheets. Are those data products? And I

could say, yeah, they are.

Jim Baldo: You probably store them on your file system locally, or they…

or they sit central someplace, but, data products also come with… they’re

attached to a catalog, or they’re referenced from a catalog, so they’re

searchable.

Jim Baldo: Okay. And, and also, they can be dynamic as well. So, you

could have something,

Jim Baldo: You could have a data product that actually refreshes itself.

Jim Baldo: on a regular basis, okay? So there… it could be sitting there,

connected to the data, and it might, in its contract, it says it

refreshes itself every

Jim Baldo: Every 15 minutes or so, or every 15 milliseconds, depending on

Jim Baldo: What the refresh is going to be.

Jim Baldo: what is needed from a refresh perspective. So, like, something

like Apache Iceberg, if you’re, you know, that is used as a materialized

view to keep that product, up to date.

Jim Baldo: But the end user doesn’t have to worry about building that

out. The producers of the product do that, okay? And so then somebody

comes in, and a data scientist, somebody who does analytics.

Jim Baldo: There’s AIML, there could be, you know, it could be an agent

that comes in that wants to use it, or an LLM wants to use it. So, this

is a trend that we see, it makes a lot of sense, it is evolving.

Jim Baldo: One of the things with that contract is that that contract,

from the specification,

Jim Baldo: is usually written in something like what’s called a YAML

file.

Jim Baldo: And that’s executable. It could be executable, which means

that somebody could

Jim Baldo: Write a specification, have it map to a contract, push the

button.

Jim Baldo: And an application would actually build a data product on

demand.

Jim Baldo: So, that’s some of the basic applied research that we’re

trying to do with our data products that we’re looking at for this

particular domain.

Jim Baldo: Okay, go to the next slide?

Jim Baldo: And so, where does all this sit? I’m showing you an example of

data mess architecture, but I don’t want to…

Jim Baldo: I want to state up front that,

Jim Baldo: These architectures, regardless of what they’re called, have

different names.

Jim Baldo: They come… this one particular data mesh architecture, is an

abstraction, so you can… you can read about it, and then you build it out

based on your needs. But the… the key ideas, the big idea here, if you

Jim Baldo: If you unpack this ton of stuff that’s in the abstraction, is

that you have the data product that’s in the center.

Jim Baldo: And…

Jim Baldo: There are end users who are going to be using that… that data

product, and in order, you’re going to have a platform, and this… this

architecture will be realized with a,

Jim Baldo: A platform that will perform the governance.

Jim Baldo: So that takes care of all of your privacy, your compliance,

you know, your access controls and whatnot. And that’s handled in the

platform automatically. And then you have this data platform team that

performs things like the data ops on it.

Jim Baldo: it makes sure that the data product itself is in the catalog

so it can be discovered. So, an end user comes in, and they’re looking

for something specific, and they type it… they type in, here, this is

what I’m interested in. It could be a keyword search.

Jim Baldo: Or it could be front-ended by a chatbot or something like

that.

Jim Baldo: there’s all sorts of options, and all the storage and the

querying and all that is all taken care of down at this platform. So we

really see this…

Jim Baldo: as the…

Jim Baldo: the trend is seeing the data products, and then this is where

the data products are going to sit. Now, they could be a different

architectures, there’s no question about that, but clearly this is

happening, and why is that?

Jim Baldo: Because data continues to grow.

Jim Baldo: at exponential rates. And in order to make data accessible.

Jim Baldo: across various different problem spaces, you really need to

sort of catalog it, make sure that people understand it, you have some

type of a specification that helps you understand what this is. Because

in one domain, this

Jim Baldo: This data product could be in high demand, and it could be of

high quality, but in another domain, because maybe it’s update rate, or

maybe because of the precision of some of the type of data that’s in

there, it could be of low quality, but still usable and accessible.

Jim Baldo: Okay, we’ll go to the last slide here.

Jim Baldo: And, the question came up with, how are data analytics

engineers using AI? And I want to sort of extend this a little bit in a

different way than, and expand upon what Professor Schmidt was trying to

summarize earlier.

Jim Baldo: What we’re seeing here in a trend in data analytics

engineering is that AI is being applied

Jim Baldo: And this is at a very, very high level, so this is the way

that we… that, you know, one particular view of it.

Jim Baldo: We see it being… AI being applied in the data pillar, or the

oval here, the intelligence oval, the orchestration oval, and the

delivery oval. Let me just say a little bit about all those. So, data…

Jim Baldo: relational databases aren’t going away, nor are data

warehouses, nor object stores. All of those things are going to be

available. So, data is placed into those source systems.

Jim Baldo: And how they’re placed in there, how schemas get generated,

are there ontologies that need to go with it? Is it a graph database? Is

it a vector database? Is it a NoSQL database? There are various design

tools that, you know, help you out with

Jim Baldo: how… how… what is the best way to store this, okay? Then the…

the notion of catalogs, excuse me, catalogs and governance.

Jim Baldo: is critical. Governance requires policy. Policy has to be

translated into something that is understandable by a machine or by a

human being, and then you have to have enforcement mechanisms that are

there. So that is all part of this AI,

Jim Baldo: wave that’s coming in, as well as with the, the catalogs.

Understanding those policies, lineage is important, the pedigree of the

data, all those things are critical. And then the…

Jim Baldo: data platforms that process this data, so we take some of this

raw data. We do… we are…

Jim Baldo: trying to do this intelligently now. In some cases, we might,

where before we would have a standard,

Jim Baldo: flow, where we would be doing this, this, you know, Python

programs, for example, or C++ programs, and processing data. In some

cases now, we might be able to stick an LLM in there.

Jim Baldo: To do some of this processing for us. Not… maybe not all of

it, but some of it.

Jim Baldo: And… and of course.

Jim Baldo: it does… it depends. I mean, in some cases, there’s privacy

concerns, so we don’t want to use a commercial LLM, we want to use a

local LLM, and all those things have to come into factor… into play.

Jim Baldo: From an intelligence perspective, with our analytics, as

Professor Schmidt had noted, we are using LLMs. There is no question

about that. And the,

Jim Baldo: And it’s sort of interesting because Professor Schmidt and I,

in a lot of cases, when we’re working with teams, and you’re using an

LLM, the prompt is really critical. And just…

Jim Baldo: 12 months ago, people were talking… were still talking about

prop engineering, and today that’s sort of…

Jim Baldo: Prompt engineering isn’t the appropriate term, because it’s

not… doesn’t really match what just the prompt is, so now we’re talking

about context engineering.

Jim Baldo: The prop is still there, we may have to make some changes to

that, but the data that we might include in there, is important. If we

include things like evaluation criteria, that’s important. So context, so

now we’re looking at context engineering.

Jim Baldo: And then retrieval augmented, generation, RAG, that is still a

very, very important aspect.

Jim Baldo: 12 months ago, I would say that we were seeing lots and lots

of papers on this produced on a monthly basis. It’s waned a little bit,

and the only reason for that is that other things have

Jim Baldo: have caught the attention of this, of this very, very rapidly

moving, wave. Agents are,

Jim Baldo: Agent Egenic systems are clearly on the landscape today.

People are using them, and,

Jim Baldo: in our capstones today, the one capstone partner that we… one

of our capstone partners that Professor Schmidt referenced.

Jim Baldo: We have 4 project, teams, that are working on this, and what

we’re doing is that their particular LLM that they built.

Jim Baldo: needs to use external data to answer prompts that come from

their customers. And so, we’re using the, message context, protocol, MCP,

to, as a facade.

Jim Baldo: that’s… that’s used so that the LLM can look and see what sort

of particular types of, in this case here, data, but the tools that it

has to offer, or the resources, or the prompts.

Jim Baldo: And,

Jim Baldo: Then it makes a decision on whether it wants to use some of

those tools or some of those resources to help it generate a response

back to a prompt that it received from

Jim Baldo: From its front end. So those are, those are very, very

important. Clearly, your, your, your knowledge of SQL is important,

knowledge of a programming language like Python,

Jim Baldo: We have some people now that are using Rust because of its

performance capabilities. And then, of course, not to forget, safety

evaluation and guardrails are really, really important.

Jim Baldo: I want to go on to the orchestration, because this is a… this

is one area that is really significant and continues to be very

important. When I was mentioning that those data products can get

updated.

Jim Baldo: You have to be able to, allow

Jim Baldo: That to occur, but also, as soon as you’re processing new

information is coming in, you have to be able to,

Jim Baldo: connect the dots, get that data in there, process it, so

things like Apache Airflow, are… are important. Continuous integration,

continuous development, that’s not just for software development,

software engineering, that’s important for data analytics engineering.

Jim Baldo: So, and Professor Schmidt has a lot of good experience in that

type of work.

Jim Baldo: This notion of, you know, XOPS, or so you have, MILOps, now we

have LLM ops, we have data ops, monitoring that data, we’re monitoring

the analytics that we’re… that we have, looking for things like drift is

very, very important.

Jim Baldo: And then, risk and compliance is crucial, especially when

something goes into production.

Jim Baldo: And, that compliance, especially, like, if you’re in

healthcare, or in a lot of things where you have to protect, you know,

privacy laws, I mean, laws, they could be local laws, they could be state

laws, they could be at the federal level, or across countries.

Jim Baldo: Okay, then we get to the delivery piece, and this is where it

gets really, really interesting. That end user

Jim Baldo: need something, and it could be just, you know, they need an

auto-gen report that they’re going to read.

Jim Baldo: Or they need some sort of a dynamic visualization that they

want to go off and explore with to try to acquire insights, insights that

might help them initiate some actionable things.

Jim Baldo: So,

Jim Baldo: I’m gonna… I’m gonna stop there, and the… the emphasis here

that I was talking about is that AI is crucial.

Jim Baldo: to data analytics today, especially data analytics engineers,

and as Professor Schmidt was noting, we are using that. LLMs and agents

are… are certainly two key things that we’re engaged with today, but

there will be others as this…

Jim Baldo: as this thing moves along.

Jim Baldo: So with that, I think, Susan, I think we’ve maybe reached the

end here?

George Mason Online Admissions: If you…

Mary Baldwin: If you want… Susan, do you want me to speak to this slide

real quick? I know we’re almost out of time.

Jim Baldo: Sure, sure, go ahead.

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, so just basically, in the online program, your

courses primarily are going to be 8 weeks asynchronous. You’re going to

have an online learning platform where there are going to be recorded

lectures, you’ll be interacting with your materials through Canvas, and

the only class that you’re going to have that’s going to be slightly

different is that capstone. That’s going to be online, but synchronous.

It’s going to last the full semester. I know someone in the Q&A asked

about that.

Mary Baldwin: And so I did want to clarify, most classes, asynchronous,

you know, working through those modules, and… but your final course will

be synchronous with your class, your team, and your professor, but in an

online format. And if you have more questions about details about that,

please email me, after the meeting so I can answer those questions in

more depth.

George Mason Online Admissions: Perfect, thank you.

George Mason Online Admissions: I have a quick question. So, being that

it is online, what kind of interaction would you expect? Like, if you had

any, you know, questions regarding the assignments, how does that work?

Jim Baldo: Sure, so I can talk to that. So I actually, have created one

of the foundation courses that Mary was showing, the CS504, data

management and mining.

Jim Baldo: So I created the online course, and how that works, Susan, is

a great question. It’s supposed to be asynchronous, so on one hand,

Susan, if you were a student and you

Jim Baldo: you know, I don’t need to talk to the professor, I’m going to

just, you know.

Jim Baldo: the lectures… a lot of the lectures are videos by me or by

other professors. And then there might be some reading, but there’ll be

assignments, quizzes. All that is… and even projects, the CS504 is

project-based.

Jim Baldo: Students work in teams, but the professor

Jim Baldo: doesn’t have to be engaged at all. Now, on the flip side of

that.

Jim Baldo: if you want to, work with the professor, or you have a

question, you can reach out to the professor. We… we do, everything in

Canvas, so you could send me a note.

Jim Baldo: One of the things Professor Schmidt instituted for all of our

courses, including our online, was we have, we created MS Teams channel.

Jim Baldo: for the course.

Jim Baldo: And,

Jim Baldo: you can do, chats in there, and communication, and virtual,

virtual sessions. So, I have a lot of students in the course, that say,

hey, can we have a virtual session? There’s a particular problem I’m

having with the assignment.

Jim Baldo: And so we, you know, we go into MS Teams, the student shares

out their screen, we look at it, we talk about it.

Jim Baldo: And, and try to solve the problem or answer the question that

the student has. A lot of back and forth with email, and sometimes if

that…

Jim Baldo: if the number of emails starts continuing, you know, it gets

really, really large, I just say, hey, let’s just have a meeting like

this, and let’s talk through it to save you some time. But that is sort

of… those are the options, so that one extreme, you don’t have to

Jim Baldo: You never have to talk to the, the professor at all. The other

extreme is you can be, you can communicate as much

Jim Baldo: as… as you’d like with… with the online instructor. Some of

the… some of the instructors, including me if I have a large course, I

might have a,

Jim Baldo: I might have a grader that would… that might grade some of the

homework.

Jim Baldo: But in, you know, for smaller courses, like, less than 20 or

so, then usually the instructor does all the grading and all the

interaction through the instructor.

George Mason Online Admissions: But thanks for… that was a good question.

Hopefully that…

Jim Baldo: Answer some questions out there in the… in our audience.

George Mason Online Admissions: It does indeed. And, how long would you

say that you have to devote to each class?

Jim Baldo: per week, would you say? Oh, so I’m gonna say something, then

I’ll let Professor Schmidt and Mary chime in as well. When we set the

course up, when we set the online courses up.

Jim Baldo: There was a, an estimate that we were given.

Jim Baldo: from,

Jim Baldo: a Carnegie Mellon on online, and for our courses, they were…

and they used some type of a formula. It was anywhere from…

Jim Baldo: It could be anywhere from 10 to 15 hours.

Jim Baldo: Per week.

Jim Baldo: No.

Jim Baldo: That might vary a little bit, depending on… we have, like, 8

modules. That might vary a little bit across the modules, and it depends

on the course. It also depends, maybe, if one course is a little more

difficult for a student versus another one, it might take a little more

time.

Jim Baldo: But that’s okay, I mean, I mean, there’s… there’s the

enjoyment of mastering the material and learning it, so it’s worthwhile.

But normally, between 10 and 15, that’s worth giving. But I would like

Professor Schmidt and

Jim Baldo: And Mary to chime in on that as well.

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, if I can jump in real quick, I think 10 to 15 is what

I usually recommend for those 8-week accelerated online classes. And as

Dr. Baller said, I think it does depend on your background. If you have a

really strong programming background, maybe one class is easier for you.

If you really are good with Excel, maybe OR531 will be easier for you, or

it’ll be more challenging. So there’s some variation, just depending on

that, but 10 to 15 is really solid for all your classes except the

capstone, and I’m sure Professor Schmidt was wanting to talk about that.

Mary Baldwin: We do generally say 25 hours for the capstone. That’s the

most intensive one. You’re going to be taking it by itself. It’s a team-

based project, you’re working for a real client, and it’s your last one.

It’s like the culmination of everything else you’ve done, so it is more

time intensive, and so we get students ready for that in advance. But

normal classes, 10 to 15, little bit of variation, and if you are finding

that it is taking you substantially more time than that to get everything

done.

Mary Baldwin: reach out to me. We talked about support from professors.

If it’s a more overarching thing, and it’s not specific to a certain

course, and you need help with study skills, or you’re just struggling,

you can meet with me too. So that’s another, interaction and support you

can have as you’re going through, but I… yeah, 10 to 15 is pretty good,

except for the capstone.

Mary Baldwin: Professor Smith?

Bernard Schmidt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so…

Bernard Schmidt: Once again, when we look at the capstone, it really

depends on the type of project that you’re working with. We have

Bernard Schmidt: Some capstones, which are traditional data analytics,

you’re given a nice security data set, you’re asked to analyze and

visualize the data, and those are the kinds of sort of things you,

projects you would get in a regular, course.

Bernard Schmidt: But then, as I mentioned before, we are also dealing

with bleeding-edge and cutting-edge technologies, and, you know,

technologies that you’re not going to be able to take a course for. And

so, the idea behind the capstone is that it mimics real world. I mean, if

you go into industry.

Bernard Schmidt: you’re assigned to a project team, you don’t get to

choose who you work with, you’re assigned to a project team. You’re

assigned the project you’re given. So, it’s the same way in the capstone,

and a good example is…

Bernard Schmidt: the five courses I was, I was thinking about initially,

every one of those project teams is working with MCP servers. Now, MCP

servers, were, developed by, I think, what was Anthropic, Dr. Baldo, less

than a year ago.

Bernard Schmidt: And you’re… like I said, you’re… there is no academic

course, at least at Mason, and certainly not in our program, that teaches

you about that, so what you wind up doing is having to spend a lot of

time outside the classroom… outside the classroom on the project.

Bernard Schmidt: Researching these new technologies on your own. So

that’s why you can get 20 to 25 hours a week

Bernard Schmidt: on some of these more challenging capstones, but at the

same time, you’re going to get exposed to new technologies that most

other students don’t get at in a typical capstone course. So, you know,

it varies, but yeah, that’s good. Think of the capstone as, like, a part-

time job.

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, and the hours per week is really relevant because we,

the online program’s part-time only, and we do that because we have a lot

of folks who have busy lives, they’re working full-time, and we want to

make sure that that coursework is something that’s manageable, that

you’re absorbing, that you’re getting everything you need out of, and

that’s kind of why we do recommend the course ordering and stuff that we

do, so that you’re able to fit that 10 to 15 hours, and then eventually

Mary Baldwin: That capstone experience into your schedule and really be

successful in it.

George Mason Online Admissions: Great, thank you. Regarding the

George Mason Online Admissions: process? Do you want me to talk about

that super quickly?

George Mason Online Admissions: Okay, perfect. So, actually, so you need

your transcripts. Unofficials will do, as long as they show a degree

conferral, and then once you’re accepted, then we will need official

transcripts, a copy of your resume. I do believe now there’s two letters

of reference that are required.

George Mason Online Admissions: Is that correct?

Mary Baldwin: For the master’s, yes. For the certificate, I don’t think

there’s any letters of recommendation, that are required anymore.

George Mason Online Admissions: Perfect. And then the personal statement.

If you’re not already working with an enrollment coordinator such as

myself, feel free to reach out, and we would be happy to provide you with

the application checklist, because there is, like, a guide for the

personal statement.

George Mason Online Admissions: And, yeah, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

I’m just gonna go ahead and forward. You can scan this in case you’re not

talking… speaking with anybody. So, this is the number, the email, you

can scan that if you’re not speaking with an enrollment coordinator, and,

George Mason Online Admissions: we’d be happy to help you. One wonderful

thing, too, is that there are three starts a year. So, fall, spring,

spring is… starts in January, despite the name, and then summer. So,

George Mason Online Admissions: Yep, and data is very hot, so…

Mary Baldwin: And we did have two questions in the Q&A, is it okay if I

answer those real quick?

George Mason Online Admissions: Please.

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, so one of them, one of the students was just asking,

hey, is the application for spring still open? Yes, it is. I don’t know

if there’s a separate deadline for the online program, but on campus,

it’s December 15th. Susan, do you know if there’s a separate one that

y’all are still accepting?

George Mason Online Admissions: It’s… okay, so the deadline is the same.

When you start the application, it’ll have you review the deadline.

However, I really encourage you to apply as soon as possible. Here’s why.

The school’s going to close for the holidays, so to give admissions

sufficient time

George Mason Online Admissions: To look over your file. And it’s done on

a rolling admission, so the sooner you apply, the sooner you get a

decision.

George Mason Online Admissions: So, yeah.

Mary Baldwin: It’s never fun to do it last minute, right after the

university closed for several weeks. Everything’s kind of slow, so the

sooner the better, but yes, we still have time. And then also the other

was, since it’s an online course, is it possible to switch to in-person

down the road? So if you are in the area, and right now, for whatever

reason, your schedule online program works best, but say in your last

semester, or you’re a little bit further down the road, you do want to

switch, that is possible. Just talk to me.

Mary Baldwin: And we can… we can help you out with that. Usually, we say

one-time switches are what we try and stick with, not, like, flip-

flopping, and it’s usually because life circumstances have changed, or

something’s gone on. So we’re, like I said, flexible. That’s the word

that’s our key word. We work our best in any way we can to help students,

so…

Mary Baldwin: Yeah, just talk to me, and we can talk about that.

George Mason Online Admissions: So, it’s an amazing program, I can tell

that y’all provide lots of support, and that’s wonderful. One last

question, because I know we’re going over time. I’ve had students that

are like, they don’t have that 3.0, and so, y’all do allow a GPA

addendum, correct?

Jim Baldo: That is… that is correct. I… I think, before they do that,

like, make sure you reach out to Susan.

Jim Baldo: And, and discuss your situation, because Susan can reach out

to, to Mary and… and discuss that in some more detail. But yes, we… it is

not a, hard, fast…

Jim Baldo: You know, it’s not a line, and if you fall below, you know, a

micro-inch below the line, that we’re not going to look at you. We will

look at you. So, but first, talk to Susan, and again, if there’s…

Jim Baldo: more questions or something than… than Susan can bring in, you

know, talk with Mary and… and myself and Professor Schmidt as well, if

necessary. But, yeah, please, please consider us, and we are… we are here

to, make you successful.

George Mason Online Admissions: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, for

all this great information.

George Mason Online Admissions: And, oops, I think we’re done. I think

we’re good with the questions. All right, we got them, everything.

Mary Baldwin: I think one last came in, but I’m gonna put my… the program

email address again in the chat, datamine at jamu.edu. Please follow up,

I’ll get back to you tomorrow, if any questions I can’t answer tonight,

and we can chat, make appointments, to talk a little bit more in depth,

one-on-one as well. Okay?

George Mason Online Admissions: Thank you again for everybody,

everything, and, thank you, students, for joining us this evening.

Jim Baldo: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, folks. We really, really looking forward

to seeing your applications, and, and I really thank you for, you know,

giving us an opportunity to, describe and talk about the program, and

meet us.

George Mason Online Admissions: Fantastic.

George Mason Online Admissions: Oh, there’s one more question. I saw the

concentrations we could choose on GMU.

Mary Baldwin: Are they available?

Mary Baldwin: So, we talked about this a little bit earlier. In the fully

online program, there’s a limited number of concentration electives, so

most students do the individualized path of study, where you don’t pick

one particular concentration. There are two that are possible, applied

analytics and business analytics. So at the moment, those are the only

two concentrations, full concentrations that are available in the online

format, but often doing the individualized path of study

Mary Baldwin: allows you the most flexibility, and we can kind of chat,

about, you know, what is the perfect kind of mixture of those

concentration electives to kind of get the most out of the degree for

you. But yeah, just those two right now, but a lot of students love the

individualized, option.

Jim Baldo: Yeah, so I’d just like to add to what Mary… Mary said. Those…

the two, concentrations that Mary, noted, those are two of our most

popular concentrations on… on the,

Jim Baldo: the, on-campus program. So, yeah, and as Mary said, we’re…

we’re trying our best to get some… some more programs on, and maybe add

another concentration.

George Mason Online Admissions: And the other thing, too, is if you’re

local, you can start out online for that flexibility, and if you like a

concentration that is on campus, you’re allowed that one-time switch,

right?

Mary Baldwin: 100%. I have some students who’ll do that. They’ll take,

like, heterogeneous data fusion, and they’ll be like, this is super cool!

And I’m like, well, there’s more of these predictive analytics courses if

you’re able to attend some of them in person. And so sometimes those can

be good shifts, and you can get the most out of all those modalities that

are available to you.

George Mason Online Admissions: Perfect. Well, thank you again for

staying extra and staying over and answering all the great questions,

and, thanks again, everyone, for joining us.

George Mason Online Admissions: Okay.

Mary Baldwin: Bye.

Jim Baldo: Take care, dogs.

George Mason Online Admissions: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Jim Baldo: Right.