The David Eccles School of Business’s Master of Science in Business Analytics and Master of Science in Information Systems programs invited our student community to share creative ways of keeping busy and motivated during the COVID-19 quarantine. The videos showcase how the pandemic does not constrain goals or the ability to complete the semester successfully. Each category winner was awarded a $50 Amazon gift card.
Shihao Li, What are you cooking, or What’s for dinner?
Shihao Li, who prefers to go by Shawn, is from Houma, a county-level city southwest of the Shanxi province in the People’s Republic of China. He began his undergraduate degree program at Shanghai Normal University and completed his Bachelor of Science in Economics at Weber State University, graduating Summa Cum Laude. After which he returned to China to start his own business, where he discovered the world is speaking two languages now – data and computer programming. As a Master of Science in Business Analytics graduate student, Shawn aspires to create an app to help people plan a destination vacation, not just a trip. In his video, Shawn aptly prepares What’s for dinner.
Keerthi Simhadri, What are you doing to stay active, e.g., exercise?
Keerthi Simhadri is originally from Hyderabad, India. She earned her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Acharya Nagarjuna University in Andra Pradesh, India and her post-graduate degree in Data Science from the International Institute of Information Technology in Hyderabad, India. After beginning her career as a business analyst, she quickly realized she needed to widen her spectrum of knowledge. Keerthi cites Peter Sondergaard, SVP of Gartner Research, to summarize her ambition: “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.” Her goals for earning a Master of Science in Information Systems degree are to “learn business fundamentals, gain exposure to global business, grow as a business leader, and promote the think through data culture.” In her video, she reveals how exercise and activity are helping her to stay motivated and healthy.
Pratik Tiwari, How are you getting around? or What are your strategies for fighting boredom at home?
Pratik Tiwari is a citizen of Cochin, India originating from Deoghar, Jharkhand. He earned his undergraduate degree in Information Technology from Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kochi, India. As a Security Engineer at Cognizant Technologies, he worked to maintain and secure identities, develop web-based single sign-on, secure federation connection setup, develop web layer protection, proxy rules-based requests, redirection, and security risk assessments. He is a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and Oracle Certified Java Programmer. The reason he desires a Master of Science in Information Systems from the University of Utah is to venture into data analytics, computer security, data mining, and data security. He shows how he gets around while fighting the boredom of being in lockdown during COVID-19 in his award-winning video.
Meghna Tiwary, How are you staying engaged with your courses?
Meghna Tiwary earned her Bachelor of Engineering (Instrumentation Technology) from Visvesvaraya Technological University in Hubli, Karnataka, India. A citizen of Bangalore, India, Meghan has more than seven years of experience in development, post-implementation enhancement, maintenance, and support of enterprise software application solutions. She believes information technology can bring productive changes in the lives of people, especially in a country such as India with an ever-increasing population. One of Meghna’s intrinsic qualities since childhood is the critical examination of things and nature – a quality that is clearly on display in her video of how she’s turning a challenging situation into an opportunity to truly focus on her studies in the Master of Science in Information Systems program.