Samuel Hacker knew before he completed his bachelor’s in chemical engineering that he wanted to supplement his STEM knowledge; he wanted to earn an MBA degree. 
“I knew if I really wanted to take my career opportunities and my professional growth to the next level, I should pursue that MBA,” says Hacker, of Lake Charles, La.
As he neared the end of his undergrad, Hacker already had a full-time job lined up with Citgo Petroleum and international travel plans.
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette MBA degree program online became an obvious choice when Hacker considered potential study concentrations, course length, and enrollment terms.
“I evaluated a lot of different options,” says Hacker. “It was a lot more accelerated, and you can take A and B term courses. I could jump in a lot faster and get out a lot faster with UL Lafayette. With that accelerated program, I got a lot deeper, more comprehensive understanding of business than I think I would have gotten with anyone else.”
Value of MBA for Engineers
With his engineering degree, Hacker learned the skills and concepts that make him valuable in the energy sector workforce as a process engineer. He’s adept at monitoring and analyzing key performance indicators within his assigned refinery operations and troubleshooting systems as needed.
But he still had a knowledge gap.
“I had this technical background, but I didn't have that comprehensive understanding of business to combine with that background,” he says.
After consulting with engineering colleagues who’d pursued MBA degrees, Hacker enrolled in the MBA with a concentration in Finance.
Finance, he says, was a great fit for where he wants to take his career — business operations or business engineering — while gaining data analytics skills for his current role.
Through Data Analysis, QMET 510, Hacker says he was able to leverage the data interpretation he does every day, and create more advanced, accurate models.
"Taking the data, filtering out the outliers that are going to throw everything off, building linear regression strategies and just being able to build a model to kind of better understand data was really my favorite part of the program,” he says.
Hacker was then able to combine those skills with everything else he’d learned in the MBA degree program through the capstone course to analyze a company of his choice.
“It was awesome to choose a company and then really break it down,” he says. “You really put all the classes together, so I really valued that in the MBA program.”
Time for Business and Play
Hacker’s courses as an undergrad had moved to online and remote delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so he was well-versed in taking online courses and how to balance coursework with other priorities.
For Hacker, that meant creating a calendar of official deadlines as well as personal deadlines to complete different aspects of his coursework.
“Cramming may work for other people, but for me, I found myself having more free time by organizing how much time I allot to something,” he says. “So, I’d put a reminder on my phone, hook it up to my Outlook calendar, and say, ‘do introduction and overview tonight’. A little alarm would go off on my phone, and then I'd knock it out.”
Strategizing around deadlines also gave Hacker the flexibility to travel to destinations from Washington to Iceland.
"With the MBA, I knew that wouldn’t slow me down for traveling; that's something I've always loved doing,” he says. “I could easily coordinate with my instructors and keep up to speed with everything. I knew I could load up on the front end of the term, do the trips, and then come back and start right where I left off.”
The flexibility of the MBA degree program online remains one of the most outstanding aspects of Hacker’s time in the program. It allowed him to pursue his passion while excelling in his graduate program.
As a graduate student, Hacker was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi for his achievements.
Hacker isn’t keeping the value of the MBA program online to himself.
"I have actually suggested UL Lafayette to a couple of my friends,” he says. "I could have easily sat out a term if something popped up, and I'd still get on track to graduate. That's what was really attractive to me is that there's a lot of flexibility. Just having more control of my time was very valuable.”