Leanne Hopkins (2007)

I liked the way the lecturers were so approachable and went out of their way to help students.

Before joining the MSc I worked as an analyst, responsible for solving problems and coming up with more effective ways of performing tasks. I studied management science as part of my undergraduate degree and found myself wishing I had a more in-depth knowledge of the various techniques I had learnt a bit about before. I graduated from Strathclyde before and knowing the university and the department, had no hesitation in returning for the MSc course. I didn't apply anywhere else.

One of the main reasons I returned to Strathclyde was its emphasis on practical learning. The MSc doesn't just teach you about techniques and theories; it gets you to put them into practice, giving you invaluable experience. I really enjoyed the MSc, mainly because I got to try out all the new skills I had obtained in a 'safe' setting and also because I could see that what I was learning was going to be really useful in future employment. I now work for NHS Scotland as an analyst and am part of a National Benchmarking Project. My job involves a whole range of OR techniques from statistics to system dynamics and I am in no doubt that I would not be able to do it without the MSc.

John Soje (2007)

The course is demanding and offers you the opportunity to deal with real cases both in individual and group course work.

Before joining the MSc OR (Operational Research) course, I worked as a financial analyst and was exposed to business related problems including financial and credit risk analysis, marketing and business development for retail and corporate banking customers.

I compared three other universities offering the same programme in England and Scotland, and opted for Strathclyde and it turned out that it is real value for money. Glasgow has remarkable historic sites, friendly people, and the location of the school within the city centre made it a lot easier for me to learn more about the environment.

In addition, the course modules are tailored to meet the dynamic labour market and the departments affiliation with the Strathclyde Business School; the expertise and achievement of the lecturers in their respective fields, attracts employers to graduates from the course.

The experiential learning module is practical, it includes an apprenticeship for a month with an OR organisation. This module exposed me to a professional work life as an OR analyst and the relevance of OR in different sectors of the economy including: finance, consultancy services, public sector services, information technology etc. I am currently working with the National Health Service in Scotland as an information analyst/statistician, and it is amazing to see how some of the "hard" and "soft" OR methods that I learned are used to disseminate valuable information for decision making in health services for Scotland.

In retrospect, I am satisfied with the experience in Strathclyde University and I can visualise the endless opportunities that are abound for a professional life as an OR analyst.

Naomi Crouch (2007)

I was lured west when I realised that Strathclyde offered a great course in operational research. Few universities offer this course and those that do often concentrate on the mathematical modelling side, whereas Strathclyde is much more vocational.

Download this Graduate Profile MSc OR as a PDF file.

Maria Gjerdrum (2006)

I met some fantastic people during the MSc - and made friends for life. This international exposure is still very valuable to me as I am now a part of one of the largest and most international organizations within Management Consulting, IT and Outsourcing.

Prior to coming to the MSc in OR; I set up a family business at the age of 19 years in Sweden and traveled a lot. I did a BA Joint Honors Degree in Finance and Management Science at Strathclyde University and during my degree I also supported the establishment of a private Medical Institution in Scandinavia. I was highly involved in activities linked to International Students, societies and my departments during my Undergraduate degree. I decided to go on with an MSc in OR during the third year of my undergraduate, because it was the best option for me. I deferred the MSc for one year and went abroad. I lived partly in Spain and partly in Sweden during this year, and I participated in establishing a Scandinavian medical research company. During the summers of my undergraduate I worked in areas that applied to my studies. I worked one summer as a controller and then moved on to working summers and holidays in retail and private banking. My MSc dissertation ended up being delayed and I was offered a job in the bank I had previously worked in. I decided to take on this full time job during the time I was writing up my project  and traveled around to various branches of the bank in the south of Sweden. At this point I also started to look around for work I "really wanted to do" linked to OR and Finance. I was fortunate to be successful with my applications and was able to choose from a number of different employers around the world. I decided to go with Accenture in Norway for many reasons, and ended up moving back to the country where I spent my childhood. I can now see more clearly how the subjects and topics I have been studying both during BA and the MSc in OR apply to the work I do today, and the career path I have currently chosen. I moved to Oslo and started working with Accenture about a month before I handed in the final version of my dissertation. I am very happy and content in my situation today. I have a flexible, comfortable and well balanced life as a Management consultant with Accenture in Norway. I belong to the specialized workforce of Finance and Performance Management, working mainly in the Banking and Insurance industry. The combination of my experiences and the degrees from Strathclyde University has definitely made me well prepared for this type of professional lifestyle.

Andrew Tookey (2005)

The practical parts of the course - experiential learning, apprenticeship and summer project - gave me a lot of hands-on experience, which I found very useful when I started working as an analyst at the Department of Health. With this experience under my belt I was able to make a useful contribution as soon as I started work, which I've found to be far from usual with most new analysts.

I took the MSc course after working for several years as a physicist at Heriot-Watt University. I wanted a career change, and having spoken to several people who worked in operational research, I realised that this would appeal to me. The MSc at Strathclyde was recommended to me by a friend who had taken the course a few years earlier, who had found it had prepared her well for working as an OR analyst. After completing the course, I successfully applied to join GORS, the Government Operational Research Service. I was posted to the Department of Health, where I am currently working on analysis for the 18 Weeks Referral-to-Treatment target.

Judith Stark (2004)

The course was great for giving you real problems to work on.

I always thought OR sounded interesting because it's about solving problems in all sorts of areas - transport, health, finance and strategic decision making to name just a few. I had a maths degree and worked in education for a while, but after a career break I decided to find out if a job in OR was for me. The course at Strathclyde was ideal as it combines learning the basic tools of OR with opportunities to work with people from outside the university finding out about real problems. I studied part-time, taking half the modules one year and half the next, finishing with a project in the third year.

I'm now an analyst in the NHS, and work with clinicians, project managers and others on a range of problems such as how to evaluate the cancer screening programmes, or how to model the numbers of people in Scotland with a particular health condition - it's surprisingly hard! For me one of the main benefits of the MSc was learning to work with "messy" problems, as that's exactly how they are in the real world.

Conor Mullan (1999)

The course was very intensive. However, the variety of the subjects and projects meant it always stayed interesting. The interactive nature of the course (with projects, companies and other students) made many of the hours required seem less like study, more like hanging out with a group of friends.

Before applying for the MSc I was doing a single discipline course (Computer Programming) with probably only one real career path open to me. Suddenly realising this wasn't the career I wanted left me short of options. The MSc was recommended to me by a friend who was doing the course having gone through a similar crisis. The multi-disciplinary aspect of the course really appealed because I wasn't sure exactly what career I wanted but I recognised that the MSc OR was the course I wanted. I often think of the course as a 'taster course' for many related skills that you can take before deciding which of them you want to concentrate on in a job. I suppose this is reflected in the variety of jobs people from my year went on to do - management consultants, analysts, statisticians.... My first job was a statistical analyst, a job I could never have got with my previous degree. I then used the other skills I learnt and went on to start my own small consultancy (ThinkResearch). Today we are one of the leading European consultancies in our field and I still really enjoy my work, applying OR. I can safely say (without exaggeration) that the MSc changed my life for the better.