Jesse Anderson
Class of 2018
Hometown: Fairfax, VA
Undergraduate University: William & Mary
Class Year: 2017
Major/Minor: Finance
Employer: LBMC
Position: Analyst
What makes William & Mary such a special place?
When you go to a school like William & Mary, you're walking among some of the best and brightest, both in terms of teachers and your fellow classmates. I still don't know the full dividend of how that's going to pay off in my career. But I know the people that I met are going to be influential in my life moving forward, and hopefully, I can be influential in their lives. That happens very rarely in life, but it happens all the time at William & Mary. It's amazing the talent you get to work with on a daily basis.
Why did you decide to pursue a Master of Science in Business Analytics?
The program really interested me because it combined a lot of the things that I enjoyed. I was a finance undergraduate student, and I enjoyed the numbers aspect of it. I was sold on the MSBA because of the program's holistic approach. Not necessarily how to manipulate data but how to present it in a way that's effective and can be used.
What were some differences between being a graduate student versus an undergraduate student at William & Mary?
It was different. It wasn't the same as being an undergraduate student because, as an undergraduate, I had to juggle classes in a variety of subjects to fulfill specific requirements. In the master's program, everybody wants to be there, everyone is smart, and you're all taking classes that you enjoy. That was the biggest difference for me.
Tell me more about what you're doing professionally.
I do transaction advisory services for a company called LDMC. My team performs financial due diligence on potential targets. We put together a data book as our final deliverable, so the process of building that out is where I'm able to apply a lot of my knowledge that I gained at William & Mary. There's an infinite number of ways I can apply it, and I'm a better analyst because I have been able to improve processes which in turn saves us on fees and saves our clients' money.
