Curriculum

This course, an overview of selected economics topics, introduces micro- and macro-economic concepts and analytical techniques used in managing businesses. Topics include consumer behavior, production and cost, market structures and market failure, fiscal and monetary policy, and international trade and finance.

The Spreadsheet Modeling course teaches you to recognize and translate managerial decision scenarios into structured mathematical models and find optimum solutions using Excel. Upon completion of this hands-on interactive course, you will enhance your problem-solving capabilities and spreadsheet skills. Topics include linear programming, integer linear programming, and simulation.

This course arms you with knowledge of inferential statistics and demonstrates their uses in managerial decision-making. Using Excel, you will become familiar with the various uses of data as critical components in organizational decision-making processes. In particular, you will learn how to summarize and analyze data using descriptive statistics, probability distributions, interval estimation, and hypothesis testing, regression analysis, and time series forecasting. In this course you will further develop your Excel proficiency.

This course focuses on the concepts and principles that underlie corporate financial statements prepared for external users, including the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. The course also examines the internal use of accounting as a management tool. Emphasis is on cost concepts and analysis of cost variances. Topics include cost-volume-profit analysis, process and activity-based costing, cost allocation, budgeting and performance measures.

This course provides an overview of the key issues, concepts, and models used in analyzing marketing problems and implementing marketing activities. Topics include segmentation, targeting, positioning, consumer and organizational buying behavior, marketing research, marketing mix framework (4Ps: product, price, place and promotion) and ethical/social considerations in marketing.  The course will use an applied approach and will include case studies as well as a real world client based project where students will have the opportunity to apply the concepts and tools learned in this class. The project will also provide an opportunity for students to apply their previously learned data analysis skills to analyze market research data to come up with implementable recommendations.

Counts toward the Business Fundamentals Certificate

This course provides you with theory-based knowledge of managerial and organizational processes from a behavioral point of view, along with the necessary tools to enable you to design those processes prudently and optimize their uses.  It aims to provide theoretical and practical approaches to better enhance interpersonal, dyadic and organizational processes. Teamwork continues to be a major thrust of current management thinking among managers and academics alike. This course aims to help develop you into a competent leader of teams, along with a deeper understanding of the elements common to high performing teams.  This course utilizes a multi-method approach to not only demonstrate the value of using teams but also to see how that understanding translates to actual changes in both your behavior and those of the members of teams you manage.

Counts toward the Business Fundamentals Certificate

This course introduces the principles of corporate finance. It focuses on the measurement of value in a corporation.  Topics include financial markets, free cash flow forecasting, present value analysis, the theory of risk and return, portfolio theory, and asset pricing models. The course also applies finance principles into major financial decisions in a corporation. Topics include cost of capital, capital budgeting, capital structure, and value based management.

Counts toward the Business Fundamentals Certificate

This course prepares students to build well-designed code modules that follow basic programming concepts.  It covers the fundamental concepts of computer programming using a standard programming language such as Python. Topics include data structures, control structures, data input/output, and debugging. Concepts and methods introduced in the course are illustrated with simple data analysis examples.

Counts toward the Analytics Certificate

For many contemporary organizations, managing the supply chain is critical because significant competitive advantages can be gained by effectively working with their suppliers and customers. Recognizing such importance, this course aims to provide you with a broad overview of supply chain management, and equips you with commonly used techniques for analyzing and optimizing a supply chain. Upon completion of this course, you will develop capabilities to make efficient use of resources to create value for the specific organization you will be working. Essential topics include process analysis, forecasting, inventory models, quality management, six-sigma approach, lean systems and sustainability.

Counts toward the Analytics Certificate

This course prepares students to create compelling narratives to effectively present the results of their data driven analysis.  Students learn various techniques and tools to present analytical results visually, communicate information clearly, and articulate the business insights effectively. Students learn data visualization software packages (e.g. Tableau) to present data effectively and dynamically.

Counts toward the Analytics Certificate

This course introduces students to the study of formal argument to prepare them for the ethical communication decisions they will make in today's global economy. Students will learn professional written and oral communication by reviewing and applying editing principles, analyzing audiences, and developing organizational structures. Emphasis will be placed on the development of persuasive arguments to recommend solutions and initiate action. The course also includes special emphasis on argument and oral presentation in a competitive environment. Students will generate ideas for business solutions and learn to develop organizational strategies, manage opposition, use effective visual aids, present as individuals and as teams, and refine delivery skills. Students will give and receive feedback to maximize their success in business.

In this course, students develop their creativity thinking, sharpen their idea generation process, and learn to stimulate creativity in more meaningful and manageable ways.  Students will also gain a better understanding of the appropriate context to cultivate and implement creativity in the workplace.  The purpose of the course is to help students acquire skills to form novel, useful and fresh solutions to new and unfamiliar problems.

This course introduces students to the legal and regulatory systems that affect the collection, analysis and use of data, and basic legal concepts that affect businesses.  The subjects include Federal and State regulations that dictate the proper methods by which data may be collected, stored and transmitted; privacy matters; antitrust regulations; business and contractual dealings among data vendors; licensing and intellectual property issues, and the proper use of data in various industries.  Students will learn how to identify, comply with, and navigate, constantly changing laws that regulate data analysis and use.

This course offers an overview for leading ethical organizations. Students will learn the language of major ethical traditions and how to apply them to arrive at ethically defensible decisions. Students will also learn the characteristics of ethical organizational cultures and how to develop them.

This project-based course aims to provide students with the strategic tools to address a specific problem or opportunity faced by Bay Area organizations of multiple natures (for-profit, non-profit, or governmental agency), such as strategic planning, competitor analysis, industry and environmental analysis, a resource and capability audit, strategic partnerships, as examples. Students will work in small teams to develop implementable recommendations that will be presented in the form of an oral presentation and written report to the manager and faculty member, as the final deliverable. The project is also designed to provide students with an introduction to international business and strategy concepts. The project will involve working on a specific assignment for a local business, to gain an appreciation for local management practices and competitive dynamics.