Business Administration (BUS)
An integrative freshmen course that addresses business processes at an introductory level by examining key business areas through the preparation of a business plan. Students gain an appreciation for how each part of a business functions on its own and how business processes interact with each other. The course culminates in our signature Bankers Day event in which each team presents their final business plan to a panel of business executives for evaluation. The course emphasizes cross-disciplinary experiential learning, group dynamics, and personal interaction with faculty, business professionals and entrepreneurs in a small-class environment. Students are introduced to team-building, entrepreneurship, and business plans at the beginning of their academic program in order to build and develop their skills over the next three years. Students should take this course as early on as possible. Generally the course is not open to seniors.
The course introduces financial reporting by focusing on the fundamental principles of recording business transactions with emphasis on the presentation and interpretation of corporate financial information. Topics include an overview of financial reporting and the accounting cycle, as well as, accounting and reporting of operating, investing and financing activities of a business. Assignments employ both Excel and SAP.
An introduction to the fundamentals of managerial accounting with a special emphasis on using accounting information in decision making. Topics covered include corporate capital stock structure, planning and control systems, cost management systems, pricing decisions, and capital expenditure decisions. Assignments employ Excel.
Focuses on the skills needed to link oral communication with the ability to work effectively in the current organizational environment. This course is based on the understanding that content and effective presentation of material are equally important in the understanding of communication. Active participation through oral presentations on current business topics is required. Students will make use of computer-based presentation technology.
The course will focus on critical professional development skills to enable students to connect their education to experiential learning opportunities and post-graduation goals. Students will become aware of industry trends relating to job opportunities, current job search techniques, personal branding strategies, the value of developing a well-connected network, and how to deliver flawless documents to targeted organizations. The course will combine the theories on professional development with real-life applications through assignments and participation in professional events to allow students to see themselves as a professional, rather than just a student. At the end of the course, students will understand the importance of demonstrating these professional skills throughout their collegiate experience (e.g. dressing professionally for presentations, developing quality resumes and cover letters, networking with alumni and guests, etc.)
This course explains what happened and what will happen in business organizations using basic statistical methods relevant to descriptive and predictive analytics. The availability of massive amounts of data and technologies to process these data enables business organizations to use analytical approaches to decision-making. Descriptive analytics is the use of data to find out what has happened in the past or is currently happening; statistical techniques include descriptive statistics and visualization. Predictive analytics is the use of data to find out what could happen in the future; statistical techniques include regression analysis. This course will cover these techniques, descriptive statistics, visualization, and regression analysis, with emphasis on problem-solving and decision-making. This course will also cover probability, probability distributions, and statistical inference. Students will perform data analysis using statistical software packages.
This course examines the behavior of individuals and groups in organizations, with the goal of understanding performance in the new workplace. It is designed to enhance the career potential of people with management and team leadership responsibilities in all areas of business. Topics include: motivation, theories and practice of leadership, individual and group decision making, conflict resolution, communication, international aspects of organizational behavior, perception, individuality, working in groups and teams, and ethical issues of organizational life. The course also emphasizes interactive and experiential learning to demonstrate the issues of organizational behavior. Through active participation, students will develop skills in leadership, communication, negotiation, teamwork, and group decisionmaking. Career awareness and skill assessment will be done through brief lectures, personal inventories, and career planning experiences.
An overview of marketing concepts and principles applicable to business and other organizations. These include: factors influencing the marketing environment and buyer behavior; market segmentation and targeting; product development, pricing, promotion and distribution to satisfy the needs of selected target markets. Approximately one-third of the course is dedicated to planning and to applying marketing-based concepts to profit and non-profit enterprise situations.
This course studies how business systems work and examines challenges confronting business organizations in the information age and beyond. One major challenge is to efficiently and effectively use three most important organizational resources, information, technology, and people, to provide service and value. To meet this challenge, the course studies business systems and strategies that organizations can utilize to organize data into information and synthesize information into knowledge. The course examines design and development of relational database management systems using Microsoft Access (structured query language), decision support systems using Microsoft Excel (what-if analysis, pivot tables, and decision tree analysis), enterprise information systems using SAP (ERPsim), and web-based systems using Google Analytics. The concepts, models, and frameworks are derived from both academic and professional sources.
An introduction to the basics of institutional finance. Financial instruments are generated and traded by participants in financial markets with financial intermediaries facilitating the process. Concepts, terminology, and current practices in each of these areas are examined, along with the impact they have on the economy. Students work on "mini cases" which employ actual data to help better understand the principles examined in the course.
An introduction to the major concepts and techniques of financial management with an emphasis on time value of money, security valuation, cost of capital, capital budgeting, and financial statement analysis.
This course prepares students to understand the fundamentals of managing personal finances. It will provide a broad overview of the basic issues in personal finance and help students develop an organized approach to making intelligent financial decisions in everyday life with the ultimate goal being successful money management and wealth accumulation. Topics covered will include: financial planning and goal setting; budgeting; basic financial transactions; banking services and products; consumer credit; housing decisions; current regulations and practices governing consumer financial transactions and contracts; insurance; basic investments; retirement planning; planning for education. This course is an elective for all business majors.
Students study international aspects of accounting, finance, economics, management, marketing and management information systems. The course helps students develop an appreciation for how different cultures, governments, and approaches to doing business impact international business-to-business relationships as well as devising strategies to enter markets in other countries. In some semesters the course is taught as a travel-study course that includes company site visits.
A study of the American legal system exploring how courts decide cases and the values that play a role in such adjudication. The nature, formation, and application of law to individuals and business. The development of law, with emphasis on the Constitution, personal and business torts, the employment relationship, discrimination, international legal perspectives, and an exploration of legal ethics and the ethics of corporations.
In this course students learn how to run business operations efficiently and effectively using prescriptive analytics tools and techniques in managerial decision making. The course introduces students to several quantitative models used in contemporary analytics. Analysis of business scenarios using computer software allows a focus on the conceptual understanding of prescriptive models. Prescriptive topics covered include: decision analysis, Bayesians analysis, stochastic and deterministic forecasting, inventory management, linear programming and optimization, simulation, and project management.
This course explores broad, multidisciplinary, generic business issues through various readings with a current events focus. Examples of themes
that might be studied are: diversity, corporate governance, social responsibility, leadership, entrepreneurship, technology, globalization, and financial
disclosure. A quasi-independent study, this course meets two or three times during the semester. Grading is on a pass/fail basis.
This is the capstone course for Business majors. It takes the perspective of company's senior management, who are tasked with building and sustaining a competitive advantage for the firm. It explores how the functions of the business are continuously shaped in response to the company's internal and external environments. The course includes industry analysis, company and competitor assessment, approaches to strategy formulation and implementation, and business ethics.