VCU Master of Science in Business
with a Concentration in
Decision Analytics Traditional Program
30 hour Curriculum

Revised curriculum approved April 2014

Prerequisite Calculus Course
All students must have completed a course in calculus prior to attempting graduate business courses.

Foundation Courses for Prerequisite Business Knowledge
Students must have the equivalent of four classes from the following list. At the time of application, all undergraduate and graduate transcripts will be reviewed to determine if the following courses may be waived. Waivers of foundation courses only occur when a student has completed the required undergraduate equivalent courses with at least a "C" grade.

MGMT 524 Statistical Elements of Quantitative Management
And at least three of the courses listed below or provide proof of satisfactory equivalent preparation:
ACCT 507 Fundamentals of Accounting
ECON 500 Concepts in Economics
FIRE 520 Financial Concepts of Management
INFO 364 Database Systems (Not offically required but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
MGMT 530 Fundamentals of the Legal Environment of Business
MGMT 540 Management Theory and Practice
MRBL 570 Concepts and Issues in Marketing

30 Credit Hours Required for the MS Degree

Required Core Courses - 9 Credit Hours
INFO 664 Business Intelligence
MGMT 632 Statistical Analysis
MGMT 645 Management Science 

Restricted Elective Courses - 9 Credit Hours satisfied by any three of the six courses below:
INFO 610 Analysis and Design of Database Systems (Not offically required but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED);
INFO 614 Data Mining
MGMT 643 Applied Multivariate Methods
MGMT 669 Forecasting Methods
MGMT 648 Analytics for Organizational Decision Making
MGMT 677 Quality Management and Six Sigma

Relevant Elective Courses - 12 Credit Hours satisfied by four courses from the approved listed below or those remaining from the above list or other relevant courses approved by the faculty advisor:

Approved Electives:
ACCT 608 Managerial Accounting
ECON 501 Introduction to Econometrics
ECON 610 Managerial Economics
ECON 612 Econometrics
FIRE 629 Real Estate Investment Analysis
FIRE 635 Investments and Security Analysis
INFO 611 Data Engineering
INFO 616 Data Warehousing
MGMT 675 Operations Management
MGMT 691 Topics in Management (Business Analytics, Supply Chain Management or topic approved by advisor)
MGMT 697 Guided Study
MRBL 673 Marketing Research
MRBL 691 Topics in Marketing (Marketing Analytics or topic approved by advisor)
Other department's courses may be approved by the program advisor, such as the courses below
OPER 527 Optimization I
OPER 528 Stochastic Simulation
OPER 627 Optimization II
OPER 635 Network Models and Graph Theory
OPER 641 Discrete Event System Simulation
OPER 643 Decision and Risk Analysis
OPER 647 Multiobjective Decision Analysis
STAT 623 Discrete Multivariate Analysis
STAT 636/ OPER 636 Machine Learning Algorithms
STAT 642 Design and Analysis of Experiments I

General description and program overview

Information about applying to VCU Graduate Programs in Business

Contact: VCU Office for Graduate Studies in Business
(804) 828-4622, gsib@vcu.edu

Concentration Faculty Advisor for the Traditional Program: Dr. Robert L. Andrews

Page last revised on June 6, 2016