Business Analytics and CBU Internships – Meet Vidhi Suthar

Coming from the small town of Idar in Gujarat, India, CBU student and employee, Vidhi Suthar, brought with her a wealth of knowledge and experience. Having already completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering) degree with more than seven years of IT industry experience, Vidhi was looking for a new challenge and wanted to study in a new country while broadening the depth of her knowledge in Business Analytics. When Vidhi discovered that CBU offered the programs she was looking for and a whole new culture to explore, she knew it was the right place for her.

Vidhi is currently in her final semester at CBU with plans to graduate in May 2024. During this time, she was lucky to have gained valuable experience when she was selected for the position of Junior Web Admin with CBU’s Marketing team. This is where she met Amy MacNeil, CBU’s Content Strategist, who gave her an opportunity to work on one of the biggest project’s during her time at CBU. The goal of this project was to learn more about students’ online experiences, so she was responsible for conducting focus group surveys about CBU’s website and the University’s presence on other platforms. 

“This internship opportunity was very well aligned with the courses I was taking, especially my Marketing Research and Data Visualization courses where I learned how focus group surveys are conducted and how to create visual reports to convey the data,” Vidhi explains. “During the internship, I worked on preparing and conducting the survey, collecting data and preparing visualizations that provided insights to the Marketing team for improving the website and content on other platforms.”

The ownership of that project, paired with the many real-time challenges she had to face throughout the internship, were Vidhi’s favourite parts. “Where I was the one handling the whole project, with Amy shadowing it, I was communicating with various teams and gathering their inputs on how to conduct the survey,” says Vidhi.  “This teamwork was the reason our survey was so successful as we were able to get responses from 400+ students.”

Vidhi recommends the CBU internship experience to any current or aspiring student. The internship provided her with many opportunities and challenges that she would not have faced otherwise and only helped in further developing her already diverse skill set. 

There are many people that Vidhi is thankful to have had with her throughout her CBU journey, primarily those she worked and studied with during her internship. This includes employees who are part of the social media and graphics teams, Communications professors, student facilitators and especially Amy MacNeil, Content Strategist; MaryAnn Cable, Marketing Manager; Jennifer Muise, Student Placement Officer; and Dr. Enayat Rajabi, Associate Professor of Business Analytics. 

Following her graduation from CBU, Vidhi intends to work in an organization where she can apply the business analytics skills she learned at CBU while continuing to learn new things. “I feel my journey at CBU has been great,” she says. “It’s been so full of life-changing experiences that have all been thanks to the great people I have come across along the way.”