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 Դ MBA degree program online became an obvious choice as he considered potential concentrations, course length, and enrollment terms.
“At UL Lafayette, you can take A and B term courses," says Hacker. "I could jump in and get out a lot faster. With that accelerated program, I got a lot deeper, more comprehensive understanding of business than I would have gotten anywhere 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.
The MBA in Finance online, 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 QMET 510: Data Analysis, Hacker leveraged the data interpretation he does every day to create more advanced, accurate models.
"Taking the data, filtering out the outliers that throw everything off, building linear regression strategies and just being able to build a model to better understand data was my favorite part of the program."
Hacker was 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 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 moved to online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so he was well-versed in balancing remote learning with other priorities.
For Hacker, that meant creating a calendar of official and personal deadlines to stay on track with his coursework.
“Cramming may work for other people, but for me, I found myself with more free time by organizing how much time I allot to something,” he says. “I’d put a reminder on my phone and link it to my Outlook calendar. A little alarm would go off, 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, he was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi for his achievements.
Hacker isn’t keeping the value of the MBA program online to himself. 
"I've 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 be on track to graduate. That's what was really attractive to me, there's a lot of flexibility. Having more control of my time was very valuable.”
