Jueling Shen was living in Auburn, Alabama, when she started planning the next chapter of her career. In her home country of China, she had managed a sales team and overseen product strategies at China Pacific Insurance Company. She enjoyed the challenge and took pride in forging a path for herself. When her husband began postgraduate studies in the U.S., Shen relocated with him, giving birth to her daughter a year later. Her attention and energy shifted to family.
The time away from her career gave Shen time to envision her professional growth: combining her experience with insurance and risk management with data science. She researched master’s programs in Alabama, but none of them offered what she wanted. Shen discovered the M.S. in Quantitative Risk Analysis & Management (QRAM) program at the Robinson College of Business and was impressed by the opportunity to become a graduate assistant, which would cover her tuition and provide vital professional experience. Even though the commute from Auburn to Atlanta was nearly four hours round trip, Shen knew it would give her the best chance to get a good job. All that travel to and from class was difficult, but she committed to the journey.
“You can’t imagine how much time I spent on the road,” Shen said with a laugh.
An evening course schedule made it hard for Shen to spend time with family; on weekends, her husband took their daughter to the park or to run errands so Shen could work on projects and write papers. A hyperfocus on her larger goals got her through the tough moments.
“I want to set a good example for my daughter and show her women can have careers no matter what age or life stage they are going through,” Shen said.
Shen secured an internship with Telenav, a wireless location-based services corporation. The position allowed her to apply the data analysis skills she developed in the program; she had to become competent in SAS analysis for the job as well.
“I worked with real data—not just random data from the internet,” she said. “I cleaned the data, completed complex analyses, and built models.”
Upon graduation, Shen joined the Louisiana Department of Education, where she analyzes school-related data for the K-12 system. The numbers may seem boring, but Shen activates her data analysis skills to tell a story and reveal trends in the school system concerning how the government prioritizes legislation and allocates vital funding.
Shen now has more time to spend with her daughter, who recently turned five. Shen’s daughter is taking piano lessons on weekends and wants to be a doctor. With Shen as a model for persevering and staying committed to realizing a vision, she should be able to achieve whatever she wants.