The Professional Component requires of 51 credits.

Business Component Core Requirements

Financial Accounting

Do you know how to read a financial statement of a publicly traded company? Does your job require you to report whether you’re above or below the budget for the year? Do your company’s assets cover their expenses and liabilities? In this course, you learn how to manage budgets, read financial statements, and use accounting principles and processes to make business decisions in real-world settings. Gain experience recording common business transactions for service and merchandising proprietorships, preparing basic journal entries for transactions that affect the balance sheet. Topics include financial statement analysis, accounting information systems, operating decisions, financing, ratio analysis of business performance, and internal control features for cash and accounts/notes receivables transactions.

Managerial Accounting

In your career as a manager, you need to be able to identify relevant information and appropriate methods of analysis in problem solving. This course familiarizes you with processes involved with identifying, measuring, analyzing, interpreting, and communicating information in pursuit of organizational goals. Deepen your knowledge of basic unit costs, cost flow management systems and processes, budgeting and performance measurement, and cost analysis and pricing decisions. Understand the difference between costing methods and cost behaviors, study the impact of process/product costing on financial statements and managerial decision-making, and learn how budgeting functions as a planning and control tool.

Introduction to Business Law

Review case studies, analyze key legal issues in business, and learn how legal strategies support business ventures over their expected life cycles. Instruction covers the U.S. legal system and specific areas of law that guide and influence business decisions. By articulating, defending, and critically reflecting on different points of view on the legal process, you examine real-world scenarios in your own case studies. Instructional material covers topics in civil and criminal law, contract formation, criminal liability, defenses, third parties, and breach, commercial sales, negotiable instruments and creditors’ rights, agency and business organizations, business entities, partnerships.

Introduction to Computers

Increase your knowledge of computer hardware, application software, operating systems, networking, and the World Wide Web. Course material covers topics in information privacy and security, database management, and ethical and legal issues in information technology. Learn how to create documents in Microsoft Word, calculate formulas in Excel spreadsheets, create Access databases, and produce narrated PowerPoint presentations. Become familiar with the business uses of websites, online software services, and social media platforms.

Business Communication

Develop your workplace communication skills and gain valuable experience developing and recording sales presentations and collaborating on persuasive videos that illuminate the features and benefits of products and services. This class improves your ability to write clear email messages and letters and produce persuasive written reports and proposals. Topics also include internal corporate communication, news releases, group/team communication, and approaches to writing for social media in business contexts, such as LinkedIn profiles.

Management Concepts and Applications

Sharpen the skills needed in the four functions of management (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling) in the workplace. This course introduces the activities involved in strategic management and how to use performance metrics to measure results. Learn how to evaluate an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and conduct useful competitive analysis documents. Readings and assignments cover manager roles and job responsibilities, leadership models, staffing, and managing change.

Marketing Concepts and Application

Deepen your knowledge of the four Ps (product, price, promotion, and placement), market segmentation and differentiation, the marketing mix, and the product life cycle. Gain experience putting together a comprehensive strategic marketing plan for an organization. Material for this class covers business-to-business (B2B) versus business-to-consumer (B2C) commercial transactions, marketing management, market research methods, product planning, distribution channels, pricing strategies, the promotion of products and services in international markets, and careers in marketing.

Principles of Finance

Get familiar with the discipline of corporate finance in this course that covers: financial statements, cash flow, the time value of money, stock and bond valuation, net present value, risk and return, capital budgeting, the cost of capital, financial forecasting and ratio analysis, working capital management, EVA (economic value added) and MVA (market value added) concepts, and trends in corporate finance. Learn how to determine values across time at various discount rates and calculate time value functions, how to use basic ratio tools to interpret financial statements, and how to analyze and solve capital budgeting problems. Prerequisites: Financial accounting, college algebra and statistics, and proficiency performing calculations in Microsoft Excel.

International Business

Learn how economic, political, legal, ethical, and financial environments affect international business operations. This course introduces the challenges and opportunities that globalization presents to business. Study the influence of cultural differences on business strategies, the impact of governmental policies on international trade and investment, foreign development, transnational management, and diplomacy. Coursework covers the growing economic interdependence of nations and its impact on managerial and corporate policy decisions that transcend national boundaries.

Strategic Management Capstone

Draw on your core business knowledge and professional competencies to solve real-world business problems. In this course, you assess your business knowledge and behavioral competencies, complete a workforce behavioral assessment, apply your skills to a real-world capstone project, and complete a summative exam. You are expected to integrate your knowledge of accounting, finance, operations, information technology, marketing, management, and ethics, evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, and develop an action plan. Competencies for this course were developed by faculty and industry experts and validated by industry advisors to ensure course content is aligned with job market requirements.

(Choose one) 15 credits

Finance

The finance concentration can help you obtain employment as a financial analyst, cost engineer, securities analyst, and commercial or investment banking officer in business, financial institutions, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Coursework covers global financial markets and banking, financial management of domestic and foreign corporations, financial risk evaluation, and securities and portfolio analysis.

• Advanced Financial Management or Advanced Corporate Finance
• Financial Markets and Institutions or Money and Banking
• Securities Analysis and Investments or Portfolio Management
• Cost Accounting
• And additional courses such as:
  • International Finance
  • Principles of Insurance
  • Risk Control
  • Risk Management Concepts and Applications

General Accounting

The accounting concentration covers managerial and public accounting methods. Learn to develop financial systems that help plan and control business activities, and prepare to work independently or with auditing firms to establish the credibility of financial reports and provide expertise in taxation policies and regulations. Career fields include controllership, corporate or managerial accounting, public accounting, internal auditing, and consulting.

• Intermediate Accounting I
• Intermediate Accounting II
• Cost Accounting
• Individual and Corporate Taxation (United States Taxation)
• Auditing

General Business

If you don’t want to earn a finance, accounting, human resource management, or logistics management concentration, you can instead select five business electives.

Logistics Management

Study the strategic and analytic processes involved with procurement, inventory control, management, coordination, maintenance, transportation, and distribution of goods and services. Focus on supply chain and project management concepts, risk management, quality control, warehousing, and distribution, and learn to prioritize cost reduction, risk, and maximized profits for logistics operations. Prepare for jobs in production planning, inventory management, manufacturing management, global distribution, and logistics management, and employment in any organization whose success depends on global fulfillment.

• Business Supply Chain Management
• Lean Logistics
• Transportation, Warehousing, and Distribution
• Two of the following courses:
  • Purchasing
  • Inventory Management
  • Operations Management
  • Quality Control
  • Project Management

Management of Human Resources

Learn to manage individuals and groups in corporations, government agencies, and nonprofits and create a work environment in which employees and the organization achieve their performance goals. Employment opportunities in this area fall in fields such as human resource management, labor and industrial relations, and personnel administration.

• Managing Human Resources
• Managing Diversity in the Workplace
• Three of the following courses:
  • International Human Resource Management
  • Labor Relations
  • Women in Business
  • Business Leadership
  • Recruitment and Selection
  • Human Resource Technology

Marketing

Learn the activities and strategies that shift products and services from vendors to consumers and how to use research to forecast trends and analyze markets. Gain insight into and evaluate consumer behavior and promotional policy and determine any ethical implications. This concentration prepares you for the marketing manager role, working at tactical and strategic levels within organizations.

• Consumer Behavior
• Marketing Management
• Market Research
• Additional credit from such courses as adverting, distribution channels management, international marketing, retail/wholesale management, sales management, and other related courses with approval.

• Apply discipline-specific concepts and methodologies to identify, analyze, and solve business problems.
• Demonstrate desire and commitment to remain current with and adaptive to changing business conditions through continuous learning and self-improvement.
• Demonstrate independent and critical thinking, function effectively in team-oriented settings, and maintain a high level of performance in a professional business environment.
• Communicate effectively, orally and in writing, in a professional business environment.
• Behave ethically and professionally in business and society.
• Demonstrate and utilize leadership principles in one’s chosen career field.