Sara Seaman

Analytics, Inspired

Business Analytics & Statistics - Student

As a four-year-old, Sara Seaman woke early to create art with crayons and paper. “I think I drew before I walked,” she laughs. “I’ve always loved it.”

A Knoxville native, Seaman took art classes in high school but decided to pursue business at the college level. She fell in love with the university on a campus visit and decided to apply. Seaman wasn’t sure what she wanted to do within business, so she started out in marketing to try to incorporate her artistic creativity, but found she missed her other passion, mathematics. “I love technology and math, so I decided to take a few courses in business analytics and found I love it,” she says. “It’s provable and numbers-based, but there’s also a measure of creativity in arranging the data and coming up with solutions.”

Seaman is part of the Global Leadership Scholars (GLS) program at the Haslam College of Business. “I’ve been really thankful for that program because it creates a community where we push each other personally and professionally,” she says. “We learn about leadership styles, and when you know the type of leader you want to be, you discover the avenue you want to take with your career.” Seaman also has served as a Haslam Ambassador and held leadership positions in business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and campus ministry Reformed University Fellowship.

Opera Solutions, an analytics consulting firm, recruited Seaman during a campus event at Haslam in the fall of 2016. “I’ll be moving to New York this fall to become a solutions analyst in their Jersey City office,” she says. “I was really impressed with them from the start and am excited to work with them on a wide variety of projects.”

While Seaman prepares to pursue a career in analytics, her long-term goals include art. She painted a portrait of UT mascot Smokey the Dog and donated it to the silent auction at Haslam’s yearly gala in 2016. Since then, she’s focused her senior thesis on creating a business plan for becoming a professional painter. “Long-term, I hope to distribute my work to galleries and sell from my website,” she says. “Most of all, I want to keep creating art.”