Syed Shezan graduated from the Master of Science in Information Quality (MSIQ) program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in December 2012 and was first hired in March 2013 by Modern Analytics in San Diego, California as a Data Quality Consultant. Syed is originally from Hyderabad, India and graduated from Osmania University also in Hyderabad with a Bachelors in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2007.
After completing his Bachelor’s degree, Syed started working with Accenture Consulting when he decided to pursue his Master’s degree in a well recognized public university in the United States. After hearing about UA Little Rock program from an Alumni, he decided to enroll in the MSIQ.
According to Syed, his experience in the MSIQ program prepared him for various roles and paved the way to multitude of opportunities in the data analytics and data governance fields. Syed has held several roles working for organizations in consulting services, financial and insurance services, and healthcare. In these companies, he has worked as a Data Quality Analyst, Data Quality Consultant, Data Quality Lead and currently as an Enterprise Analytics Consultant focused on Enterprise Data Governance with Sentara Healthcare.
Sentara Healthcare is a diverse not-for-profit association of 12 hospitals headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia with various locations throughout Virginia in the United States of America. Sentara Healthcare provides services focused on ambulatory, home health and hospice, rehab and therapy centers, and also provides health insurance to its patients and members.
Syed’s current role is working at the Enterprise Analytics Department. The department oversees data governance, BI reporting, and analytics support. In his role, Syed helps in formulating and implementing data governance strategy, procedures, and guiding principles. He also works on creating policies around data stewardship, metadata management, data and information quality, data privacy, and master data management.
According to Syed, his experience in the UA Little Rock Information Quality Graduate Program provided him both the theoretical and practical learning opportunities helping him to excel in these roles. “The majority of my primary responsibilities in my current role are directly related to the courses I took in my master’s program. This is especially true for the courses I took on Information Quality Theory, Entity Resolution, Information Quality Tools, Information Visualization, and Information Quality Policy and Strategy”, he explained.
In addition, Syed stated “My greatest mentors were almost all the faculty members at UA Little Rock especially Dr.John Talburt, Dr.Daniel Berleant, Dr.Elizabeth Pierce, and Dr.Eric Nelson. I would also like to thank my fellow Alumni and colleagues – Raheel Mohammed, Mahmood Mohammed, and Huzaifa Mujtehdi.”
In his advice to current or prospective students in the MSIQ program, Syed said “The IQ program at UA Little Rock is very rewarding. Please pay attention to all the required courses in the program, as well as, the electives. Give special focus on courses such as Principles of Information Quality, Information Quality Tools, Entity Resolution, and Information Visualization which have real word practical approaches.”
He also added that students should think of how to apply the learning from the program in Big Data analytics, data science, and machine learning, and learn programming languages such as R, Python, and SQL.
The Information Science Department at the University of Arkansas Little Rock offers graduate certificates in data science and information quality, and master’s and doctoral degrees in both information quality and information science. All programs are offered both online and on-campus. The master’s in informaiton quality and in information science were ranked 19th best in the nation by US News and World Report.
