The Jindal School’s MS in Marketing program in June gained a new classification that changed it to a STEM-designated program. An acronym for science, technology, engineering and math, STEM means a program includes those subjects in its curriculum and focuses on them.

“The MS in Marketing has always been a very quantitative degree program heavily focused on analytics, insights and digital marketing,” Program Director Alex Edsel, a marketing professor of practice, says.

That emphasis came about in part, Edsel says, because Marketing Area faculty members have been strongly influenced by the late Dr. Frank M. Bass (1926-2006), Eugene McDermott Chair in the Jindal School, “considered by many the father of marketing analytics.”

Applied by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, “the STEM designation validates this tradition,” Edsel says.

The STEM designation also allows eligible international students to obtain up to a 24-month optional practice time (OPT) extension after they graduate to work in a job in the United States related to their field of study.

“This provides our international stuents with much-needed work experience to help launch their careers,” Edsel says.

In all, the Jindal School offers a dozen STEM-designated programs. At the undergraduate level, the new BS in Business Analytics program (see New Undergraduate Analytics Program Builds Data-Driven Expertise) recently joined the BS in Information Technology and Systems and BS in Supply Chain Management programs as a STEM designee.

Graduate-level STEM programs in addition to the MS in Marketing are:

• MS in Business Analytics
• MS in Energy Management
• MS in Finance
• MS in Financial Technology and Analytics
• MS in Information Technology and Management
• MS in Management Science
• MS in Supply Chain Management
• MS in Systems Engineering and Management.