BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Keeping in step with rapidly evolving uses of digital information by the world’s leading accounting and professional services firms, the Indiana University Kelley School of Business will begin offering a Master of Science in Accounting with Data and Analytics degree.
Kelley has offered an intensive one-year Master of Science in Accounting since 1998, and its curriculum has evolved in recent years to support the new direction being offered through the new degree.
More recently, substantive changes to the curriculum have included more stand‐alone and integrated data and analytics coursework.
Leslie Hodder
“As in other professional fields, leading professional services firms increasingly are employing artificial intelligence, robotics, digitization, data and analytics and are requiring our graduates to understand the technologies and methodologies used in today’s highly complex, data‐centric accounting environment,” said Leslie Hodder, faculty chair of Graduate Accounting Programs and the Conrad Prebys Professor. “Our curriculum has been on the leading edge of these changes and we sought this name change because it more accurately reflects what our program offers today.”
The in‐residence program is designed for students with undergraduate accounting degrees who wish to develop deeper subject‐matter expertise and data‐analytics skills before embarking on their careers in professional services or at corporations.
All students are required to take courses in spreadsheet modeling used to solve business problems, predictive analytics and data mining, enterprise data management and business applications of artificial intelligence. Often working in teams, students learn how to tackle collaborative learning exercises, case analyses, presentations and consulting projects. They also become literate in commercial data sources such as Compustat, CRSP, Execucomp and MI Insight and skilled at using software tools such as SPSS Modeler, Tableau and Stata.
“Accounting today goes far beyond how many have traditionally seen the profession. Our graduates often are consultants and advisors to top management, with regard to assurance and risk management, as well as taxation,” said Idalene “Idie” Kesner, dean of the Kelley School and the Frank P. Popoff Chair in Strategic Management. “Organizations collect a lot of data. Those who leave our program are better prepared to help managers shape and frame information so it can be used to make the right decisions for their companies and stakeholders in the 21st century.”
Kelley was ranked eighth in the latest national reputational survey of professors conducted by Public Accounting Report. Likewise, the largest employers of Kelley graduates, who requested this degree shift, have been pleased with the caliber the program’s alumni – 95 percent of whom have job offers within 90 days of graduation, including at the Big Four firms.
Graduates can choose from a variety of accounting career paths, including taxation, auditing and risk management, corporate accounting, management consulting, banking and financial services and with governmental and nonprofit organizations.
Kelley is joining other top schools to offer a master’s degree in accounting with data and analytics, which will help it remain competitive and to provide the best career outcomes for its graduates.