Summer Quarter
BUS AN 502 Leadership & Professional Development
BUS AN 507 Decision Modeling and Optimization
2 credits
Prediction tells you what will happen; optimization tells you what to do about it. You will build decision-support models using linear programming, decision analysis, and simulation (first in spreadsheets, where the logic stays visible, then in Python). These are the methods behind staffing plans, pricing structures, and supply chain decisions: the move from reporting what happened to recommending what the organization should do next.
BUS AN 510 Probability and Statistics
3 credits
Upon completing this course, you will be equipped to utilize probability models and inferential statistics for robust business analysis. Through various hands-on activities, including working with real-world big data, you will apply these concepts and explore the integration of AI tools to enhance your analytical capabilities.
BUS AN 511 Programming Essentials
2 credits
This course explores the integration of generative AI with modern programming languages to glean business intelligence. Students will learn how AI can augment traditional programming tasks, the new paradigms introduced by AI-driven development, and practical skills for leveraging AI in programming. The course encompasses general concepts and techniques, including Python basics, data visualization, and business decision-making.
BUS AN 512 Data Management and SQL
3 credits
SQL is the first thing most data teams test you on, whatever the role. You will learn to think relationally and write queries that hold up in production: multi-table joins, window functions, aggregation, and the query pipelines behind real reporting. You will also learn to review AI-generated SQL critically, because a query that runs is not the same as a query that is right.
Autumn Quarter
BUS AN 502 Leadership & Professional Development
BUS AN 579 Data Visualization and Storytelling
2 credits
Finding the insight is half the job; making it land is the other half. You will create and critique chart types, design interactive dashboards, and build data stories with a real narrative arc, working hands-on in industry-standard tools. These are the skills you will use in every course that follows, and in the portfolio you bring to interviews.
BUS AN 506 Operations and Supply Chain Management
3 credits
In the Operations Management Analytics course, you will gain a deep understanding of critical operational issues and learn advanced analytical techniques essential for planning, managing, optimizing, and executing the production and delivery of goods and services, particularly in high-tech industries. Through a mix of lectures, case studies, and practical applications, you will develop strong quantitative and problem-solving skills that are highly valued by employers. This course will prepare you to tackle real-world operational challenges, focusing on critical areas such as capacity planning, service operations, inventory management, and supply chain analytics.
BUS AN 517 Machine Learning Methods and AI
3 credits
Machine learning the way practitioners use it: every method tied to a business problem it solves and a failure mode it prevents. You work from regression, validation, and regularization through tree ensembles, gradient boosting, and model interpretability, then into the foundations of modern AI (transformers and large language models). Each topic is worked through hands-on in Python on real business data, so you finish able to build, evaluate, and explain a model end to end.
BUS AN 500 Finance and Accounting
3 credits
The financial literacy that senior data, product, and consulting roles assume you already have. You will learn how transactions flow into financial statements, how to read those statements to evaluate firms and the managers running them, and the fundamentals of finance and managerial accounting. By the end, you can take a company’s financials and turn them into evidence for an investment or business decision.
Winter Quarter
BUS AN 502 Leadership & Professional Development
BUS AN 513 Customer Analytics
3 credits
The Customer Analytics course provides a 360-degree perspective on leveraging data to improve customer interactions and relationships. It covers key strategies to acquire, grow, and retain customers and teaches you to create customer value metrics. You’ll explore models tailored to customer-facing data using Python and understand how AI can enhance these foundational models. This course equips you to make data-driven decisions around the customer lifecycle, benefiting both internal and external customer interactions in any industry.
BUS AN 514 Generative AI for Business Analytics
3 credits
Design and evaluate generative AI applications for business analytics. Students work with large language model APIs, prompting and context design, embeddings, retrieval-augmented generation, structured outputs, and agentic workflows. The course emphasizes rigorous evaluation, reliability, privacy, security, governance, cost, and human oversight, culminating in a working prototype and business implementation recommendation.
BUS AN 515 Digital Marketing
3 credits
In this course, students learn to optimize online advertising, email marketing, and mobile marketing strategies through an analytics-centered approach, focusing on experimentation and data-driven decision-making. The course provides hands-on skills in identifying and analyzing marketing problems using modern statistical, econometric, and machine learning methods in Python, essential for careers in technology, consulting, marketing, or entrepreneurship. By developing these skills, students gain the competency to manage marketing analytics teams and make informed decisions to achieve digital marketing outcomes.
BUS AN 516 Operations Research Data Analytics
3 credits
In this course, you will develop essential skills in using quantitative tools and software, including Python, to gain insights from business data across various industries. You’ll work on case assignments and a final project applying descriptive analytics and statistical modeling to real-world scenarios, equipping you with the ability to critically evaluate data and identify opportunities for analytics in operations, marketing, finance, and more. While coding is involved, the focus is on interpreting and modifying code to derive insights, preparing you to confidently lead analytics initiatives in the workplace and become a data-savvy manager.
Spring Quarter
BUS AN 502 Leadership & Professional Development
2 credits
BUS AN 579 Pricing Analytics
3 credits
In this course, you will learn how to make pricing decisions using a data analytical approach. Students work with real-world data and code up models in Python to optimize pricing decisions in many different business applications and contexts. Upon completing the course, you will be able to design and analyze price experiments, use sales and price data for demand modeling and optimal pricing, and choose between different pricing structures like uniform pricing, targeted pricing, product line pricing, and bundled pricing in various markets.
BUS AN 550 Applied AI in BUS Analytics
3 credits
New proposed course for Spring 2028
BUS AN 599 Business Analytics Practicum
2 credits
The MSBA Practicum class connects students with organizations to collaborate on business analytics projects, providing first-hand experience and skill training in demand by today’s employers. Students work in teams using analytics, machine learning, AI, programming, and data visualization tools to answer current and vital business real-world business questions. We partner with leading firms like Microsoft, GM, Tableau, Salesforce, the US Army, and a host of firms active in Electric Vehicle technologies, Climate Change Analysis, and AI deployment.
Note: Proposed courses for the 2027-28 MSBA curriculum. Subject to change.