After a period of fully virtualized coursework, this semester gave students the opportunity to directly build a network of like-minded peers. Throughout her six weeks in the Accelerator, WCA collaborated with board members of the student club’s Wharton Analytics Fellows to facilitate a variety of social events in the brand new Academic Research Building (ARB) on campus. These networking sessions provided students with an opportunity to meet other teams and share their experiences so far. From lunches at DiBruno Bros. to interactive quizzes and scavenger hunts across ARB, the networking sessions also helped ease the tension that weeks of data crunching sometimes created.
“I loved socializing on Fridays,” Dai says. “I am very happy to meet the staff and other students, especially in person, who are working on various projects. The experience is different from a Zoom call. I liked.”
For students working on projects with IKEA, whose US digital headquarters is near the university campus, Accelerator provided even more opportunities for face-to-face networking. “I was very lucky to have the opportunity to meet IKEA. [in-person] Yunchong Liu, a first-year master’s student and business engagement leader for the IKEA project, says: “This experience has been great. You can see the smiles on everyone’s faces. It’s very easy to do. Smooth and efficient.”
But what all the teams were able to enjoy was all the benefits of experiential learning at Wharton.
“Because the program bears the Wharton name, we have access to all the clients we’ve been lucky enough to work with,” says Ou. It’s also an opportunity to build connections with Wharton scholars and client organizations. “
Accelerator veteran Ashley Clarke shared similar thoughts. “With every Analytics Accelerator, I learned new skills, new models, and new ways of thinking about data. Thank you very much.”
Eric Bradlow, Wharton’s KP Chao Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean of Analytics at Wharton, said: “Students learn. The faculty who supervise them can teach them practical uses of analytics, and the companies, nonprofits, or organizations we work with can benefit from our skills. You can receive it.”
