Students must have completed, or satisfactorily complete during the program, all these courses or their equivalents (as determined by the Program Director). You may count all relevant prior undergraduate or graduate courses taken at UC or another university toward meeting these requirements, with approval of the Program Director. The credit hours in these courses do not count toward the 48 quarter credits for the Program Requirements themselves.  You may take some courses concurrently with the Program Requirements after you've been admitted and begun the program; again, this decision is made in consultation with the Program Director.  All courses from this list deemed necessary by the Program Director must be officially registered for, and taken for a grade (i.e., no informal class sit-ins, audits, or pass/fail grades are permitted). Numbers in parentheses are the quarter credits.

Mathematics Foundations

These ensure adequate preparation in calculus, matrix methods or linear algebra, and computer programming; these are all required.  It is highly advisable to have taken at least almost all of these courses before starting the program, as this material is needed in even the beginning QA core courses in the program.

• Four quarters or three semesters of calculus, through multivariate calculus. While many universities have 'short' or 'light' or 'business' calculus courses, they are not at a level of coverage or depth required for our MS - Business Analytics program. Topics of coverage should include: functions; limits and continuity; derivatives; applications of the derivative; the integral and applications; exponential and logarithmic functions; inverse functions; techniques of integration; polar coordinates; conic sections; Taylor's formula; improper integrals; sequences and series; vectors; lines; planes; vector-valued functions; partial derivatives; multiple integrals; and calculus of vector fields. At UC, the appropriate courses are:

15-MATH-251 (5 quarter credits), Calculus I
15-MATH-252 (4 quarter credits), Calculus II
15-MATH-253 (4 quarter credits), Calculus III
15-MATH-264 (5 quarter credits), Calculus IV

• Linear algebra or matrix methods. Topics of coverage should include: systems of linear equations; matrices; vector spaces; bases and dimension; orthogonality; linear transformations; determinants; eigenvalues and eigenvectors; diagonalization. At UC, the appropriate courses are either 15-MATH-351, Linear Algebra I (3 quarter credits), or 15-MATH-276, Matrix Methods (3 quarter credits).
• A fundamental knowledge of computing, including facility in a procedural programming language like Ruby, Python, C, C++, Matlab, Java, Visual Basic, Pascal, or FORTRAN (facility with spreadsheets is itself not sufficient). A formal course in programming is not required; self-study is acceptable.  Of course, we also assume that you are already comfortable with word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, web browsers, etc.

Basic Business Knowledge (BBK)

Any or all of these courses may be taken at any time, either before or after admission, and before or after beginning the program; the Program Director will examine your prior transcripts and waive whatever is possible.  Unlike the Mathematics Foundations program prerequisite courses above, you may take whatever you need from these courses at any time during your MS - Business Analytics program, even toward the end.

You must have a course in at least three of the seven areas in the list below.  If you have none of these areas covered from prior work, you must take at least 12 quarter credits among the three (or more) courses you choose to satisfy BBK.  Courses in the list below are pre-approved for students satisfying this requirement at UC, but others are possible with approval of the Program Director (numbers in parentheses are quarter credit hours).

• Operations Management:  22-OM-711 Operations Management (4 quarter credits)
• Information Systems:  22-IS-711 Information and Technology Management (4 quarter credits)
• Economics:  22-FIN-725 Financial Economics (4), 22-ECON-101 Introduction to Microeconomics (3 quarter credits), or  22-ECON-101 Introduction to Macroeconomics (3 quarter credits)
• Finance:  22-FIN-711 Financial Management (4 quarter credits), or 22-FIN-713 Financial Analysis Tools (2 quarter credits), or 22-FIN-361 Foundations of Finance (3 quarter credits)
• Accounting:  22-ACCT-711 Financial Accounting (4 quarter credits), or 22-ACCT-261 Financial Accounting (4 quarter credits)
• Marketing:  22-MKTG-711 Marketing for Managers (4 quarter credits), or 22-MKTG-377 Introduction to Marketing (5 quarter credits)
• Management:  22-MGMT-710 Teams and Interpersonal Effectiveness (2 quarter credits), or 22-MGMT-714 Leadership and Organizations (4 quarter credits)

While any three of the above seven areas will satisfy BBK, the areas toward the top of the list are generally suggested in terms of relevance to the MS - Business Analytics program.