Two of this year’s graduates—Andrew Santis, who is receiving a bachelor’s of science in marketing with a concentration in global business, and Stephanie Ballantyne, who graduates with a dual master’s degree in public accounting and taxation—have worked, lived, and studied in more than a dozen countries between the two of them.

To Ballantyne, the global bent at the Gabelli School felt like home. Born in Germany and raised in Switzerland, she completed her undergraduate degree in accounting finance at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and then worked for Deloitte Zurich before coming to Fordham.

The move was challenging, she said; but then, having attended an international high school and traveled as a student to the likes of Egypt, Russia, and Greece, the challenge was a familiar one.

“I’ve always had culture shock happening at some point or another, but I grew up knowing I’d have an international lifestyle,” said Ballantyne, whose credits include president of the Gabelli School’s Accounting and Tax Society and chief operating officer of the Finance Society.

“I like New York,” she said. “Switzerland is a bit more laid back—they start work earlier, but also leave earlier, and on the weekends their phones are turned off. For someone starting their career, it can seem a bit slow.”

The New York pace has suited Ballantyne. She interned at Deloitte in Manhattan last summer, and by August she had secured a full-time offer.

“It was a big change, coming here—especially because I started at Fordham in 2014 during the polar vortex. There were about two snow days per week, which made it hard to meet people,” she said. “But overall, Fordham was definitely the right choice.”

For Santis, a native New Yorker, it was a study tour to Spain during his junior year that sparked his passion for global business—but his real adventure began when he returned home to his internship at Cardwell Beach, a digital marketing agency.

“My boss knew how much I enjoyed Madrid, and in March he called and said they wanted to offer me compensation for my work, which would be to send me abroad to work for the summer,” he said. “It didn’t even have to be Spain—I could choose any country I wanted.”

His options boundless, Santis chose a multi-city tour of Europe. He began with a week in Paris, and then joined up with fellow Gabelli School students for a summer semester program at Fordham’s London Centre. After London, he continued on to Germany, where he spent a week each in Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich.

In the mornings Santis explored the city, and in the afternoons, once his New York colleagues were at the office, he worked on creating buyer personas for Cardwell Beach.

“It was definitely a test of strength and character,” Santis said. “I learned a lot about myself by venturing out to another part of the world on my own.”

Both Santis and Ballantyne have jobs lined up following graduation. Ballantyne will continue with Deloitte in Manhattan, and Santis will take a full-time position at Cardwell Beach (a position for which he will craft his own title and job description).

“Fordham prepared me well,” Ballantyne said. “All the opportunities are here—you just have to take the initiative to go get them.”

Of course, the Fordham analytics students could have told you that weeks ago.

On March 27, students from across the University faced off in the final round of March Data Crunch Madness, an NCAA analytics competition sponsored by Fordham’s Center for Digital Transformation, the Business Analytics Society, and Deloitte.

The event was the culmination of a month of data-crunching for the sixteen teams of graduate and undergraduate students. Starting in February, each team had one week to analyze historical data from past NCAA tournaments, then another two weeks to analyze the current season’s data. The last step was to present their results to a panel of judges.

“When I saw the reports I was stunned,” said “R.P” Raghupathi, PhD, director of the business analytics program at the Gabelli School of Business.

“Many of the international students had never even heard of March Madness. Yet they were able to grasp this very complex domain and use March Madness language. That’s important, because ultimately when they go for job interviews they’ll need to relate to perspective employers using the companies’ terminology.”

One way to arrive at a prediction was through a “logistic regression” model, said Team Data Whiz—one of only two teams to be made up entirely of undergraduates. Using the mathematical model, the group calculated each NCAA team’s chances of winning and then tested the accuracy of their model using data from past seasons.

Once they determined the model was a reliable, they applied it to the current season to make their predictions.

“It’s sort of like grading—we’re basically grading the sports teams and figuring out how they would do against each other,” said graduate student Travis Petersen, an officer in the Business Analytics Society and organizer of the competition.

“Whenever you’re predicting something as unpredictable as a sports event, there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s more about trying to minimize your uncertainty.”

The teams were evaluated based on their poster presentations, methodology, and results. First, second, and third-place prizes were awarded by a panel of judges comprised of Petersen, two Fordham faculty members, and two representatives from Deloitte.

The overwhelming majority of teams were spot-on in their predictions, which made for a formidable judging process, Petersen said. To illustrate, he showed the group two graphs comparing the Fordham students’ predictions with those of renowned statistician Nate Silver.

“Your predictions lined up almost exactly with Silver’s predictions,” Petersen told the students during the tense moments before the winners were announced. “That goes to show the quality of your submissions. You guys are picking in line with the universal expert in the field.”

Ultimately, Raghupathi said, the competition’s greatest payoff was the opportunity for students to test their analytic abilities in a real-life situation.

“It allows students to apply their skills to this big data set and very quickly build a model, test it, and then present quantitative data in a way that the judges will understand,” he said.

The winners were:

• First Place: Team Coach K (Xiayu Zeng; Feifei Chen; Yi Chun Chien; and Ziaoshan Jin)
• Second Place: Team Explorer (Dan Luo, Shenglei Zhao, Tianmiao Zhou, and Linsheng Shen)
• Third Place: Team Fab 5 (George Kernochan, Marcello Fortunato, Sal Cocciaro, and Sanjary Pothula)