On May 20, MBA graduate Colin Bitter ‘22 will serve as the student speaker during The College of New Jersey’s Graduate Commencement ceremony.
Bitter is the associate director of library science for Moody’s Analytics. Working specifically in Media Solutions, Bitter and the rest of his team, known as Enrichment, are charged with enriching news data with tags, such as people, locations, subjects, and organizations. As associate director of library science, Bitter has many unique responsibilities. To name a few, he provides entity management and enrichment for all organizations tagged in Media Solutions news aggregation products; works with data scientists to help develop and refine machine learning models to improve tagging and categorization; assists the director in analyzing and improving data flows, using Python to detect signal in data sets and measure data quality; manages offshore contractors on special projects related to content enrichment, and assists enrichment coworkers in maintaining proprietary, publisher, third party, and industry standard taxonomies.
Bitter attributes much of his professional knowledge and skills to TCNJ’s MBA education. For example, he applies his Python skills in using APIS to pull data down from various sources and performing data analyses; in managing offshore resources, he frequently leverages his knowledge gained from management courses; and now working within a financial services context, he regularly draws on business concepts learned during year two of the program.
Looking back on his time as an MBA student, Bitter counted among his fondest memories the time he got to meet his cohort in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. He also highlighted two courses that were especially instrumental in his academic success: Regression/Data Visualization with Dr. Holleran and Text Mining with Dr. Huang.
Bitter reminds students to enjoy their time at TCNJ. “There are various experts and resources you will have access to while in the program–take advantage of them! Be sure to form strong relationships with both faculty and fellow students. Don’t forget about all the great resources you can make use of around campus outside of the classroom (for example, the library) during graduate school.”