Kristen Kras, a senior marketing major and business analytics minor, has long imagined a career that combines marketing and music. This summer, she tested what that could look like by analyzing data for the Grammy Awards.
Through the Global Career Accelerator, which launched at the University of Dayton in spring 2026, Kras gained hands-on experience as a data analyst, using tools like Excel and Tableau to tackle real-world business challenges for well-known organizations.
“It’s one thing to talk hypothetically about something that you want to do,” Kras said. “It’s another thing to talk about hands-on experience with these companies.”
Turning Passion Into Real-World Experience
For Kras, the 10-week Global Career Accelerator offered a chance to build technical skills through real-world projects while exploring where marketing, analytics and her passion for music could intersect.
The Grammy Awards project stood out most. Kras, who also hosts a campus radio show, analyzed digital engagement following the 2022 separation of Grammy.com and RecordingAcademy.com. Using Excel and Tableau, she worked with a large data set to identify trends in website traffic and user engagement, create visualizations and translate her findings into recommendations to strengthen digital strategy.
“I kind of got to play this role of working with data and with the industry that I want to go into,” Kras said.
The experience built on skills she had begun developing in her University of Dayton coursework and gave her a chance to go deeper into analytics.
“I really wanted to take this program to strengthen my analytical thinking and my technical skills,” she said.
Kras also completed projects connected to organizations including DoorDash, Intel, Spotify, Billboard and the National Park Service, building experience she can add to her portfolio and discuss with future employers. More importantly, the experience confirmed her interest in using analytics to support marketing in the music industry, from festivals and artists to streaming platforms and record labels.
Flexible Experience With Real-World Impact
Kras completed the Global Career Accelerator while also balancing two summer internships.
Because much of the program was asynchronous, she could fit projects around her work schedule while still participating in virtual meetings, office hours and collaborative sessions with students from other universities.
That flexibility allowed her to build technical skills without giving up other professional experiences.
For Kras, each experience served a different purpose. Her internships exposed her to areas such as social media, while the Global Career Accelerator pushed her further into data-driven problem-solving.
Together, they helped her better understand not just what she could do, but what she wanted to do.
A Chance to Explore Early
That is why Kras sees particular value in the program for students early in their college experience.
She entered University of Dayton School of Business Administration through Discover Business and initially considered accounting before finding a stronger fit in marketing and business analytics. Looking back, she wishes she had access to an experience like the Global Career Accelerator even earlier.
“I wish I was a freshman or sophomore, and I saw that Global Career Accelerator as an option,” Kras said, “knowing that I could take it and figure out if this is what I want to do.”
For first- and second-year students, the experience can serve as an early proving ground: explore a career area, gain technical skills, complete client-based projects and build experience before pursuing a traditional internship.
Kras’ advice is simple.
“Step outside your comfort zone and try different things.”
For her, doing exactly that turned an interest in marketing, data and music into a clearer vision for what could come next.