MSIS Program Prepares for Technology Career
Riya Singh, MS’ 25, information systems, accomplished several goals as a Northeastern student, from tackling challenging academics and successfully completing a co-op, to participating in development projects and taking on a student government role. Now she’s ready for a career in the technology industry.
Riya Singh, MS’ 25, information systems, had a successful undergraduate career, earning a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at Savitribai Phule Pune University in India while winning research awards and completing internships as a developer and data analyst. But she wasn’t going to stop there. Instead, Singh decided it was time to pursue a graduate degree.
She selected Northeastern because of its flexible curriculum, well-regarded co-op program, and strong industry relationships. She was also drawn to the Boston campus’s proximity to many technology companies. Additionally, she thought the MS in information systems program would address her specific interests in back-end development and AI.
The curriculum aligned well with her professional goals and enabled her to develop a comprehensive set of skills. Courses such as Big Data Systems & Intelligent Analytics, taught by Srikanth Krishnamurthy, adjunct faculty in the Multidisciplinary Graduate Engineering Program, was particularly helpful with its focus on large-scale data and AI-driven insights.
Singh completed a co-op at Werfen, a medical diagnostics company, as a data analyst in the quality assurance and regulatory affairs department, which provided her with hands-on experience in analyzing manufacturing and operational metrics, using tools such as Power BI for data visualization. This experience enhanced her technical skills and gave her a deeper understanding of data pipelines and operational data analysis.
In securing her co-op, she relied on Laura Meyer, director and associate co-op coordinator in the Multidisciplinary Masters Co-op Program, and Marriam Mitry, assistant co-op coordinator and director, for guidance on fine-tuning her job search and preparing for her job interview.
She gained additional experience working on a class project with several peers to develop an application called BingeWatch, a unified streaming recommendation system that aggregates content from platforms like Netflix and Hulu to make viewing selections easier. The team started with a 23,000-record Kaggle dataset, expanding it with real-time web scraping.
Using machine learning and personalized filters, the team tailored content recommendations based on mood and occasion. The group faced a significant challenge of blending diverse data formats, which it addressed through rigorous data preprocessing and model fine-tuning. BingeWatch not only reduces decision fatigue for users but also helps content curators and marketers with data-driven insights for targeted advertising and content strategy.
Singh took on leadership roles that reflects her collaborative spirit. As vice president of academic affairs in the Graduate Student Government (GSG), she co-organized the Master’s and Professional Doctorate IMPACT Symposium, an event that showcases graduate students’ experiential learning experiences. She also served as a panelist to discuss her co-op experience in the Career Management for Engineers class.
Having accomplished academic, research, and leadership goals, Singh is ready to contribute as a qualified professional in the technology industry.