Contact

Whitman Graduate Programs, busgrad@syr.edu

Program Description

Students in the Whitman MBA program at Syracuse University receive a well-rounded education that incorporates both the theoretical background and practical experience needed to succeed in today’s ever-changing global economy. The experiential learning component encourages students to apply classroom learning to business problems, connect with decision makers, and deliver tangible results that add value to sponsoring organizations. Students build an experiential portfolio through internships, consulting, specialized courses, community engagement, and other practical experiences that make them more valuable in the marketplace. Students successfully completing concentrations in accounting, business analytics, finance, marketing, and supply chain management are classified as STEM-designated. This allows international students on an F-1 visa to extend their time in OPT (Optional Practical Training) from 12 to 36 months in the U.S. This makes graduates from STEM-designated programs move hirable and they gain valuable experience relevant to their field of study. 

Accreditation

The Whitman School has been accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) since 1920.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate knowledge of how to effectively manage organizational resources.
2. Demonstrate effective, persuasive personal and professional communication and behaviors.
3. Demonstrate skills in inquiry, critical thinking and problem solving, supported by appropriate
   analytical and quantitative techniques.
4. Analytical and quantitative techniques
5. Demonstrate the ability to think strategically about business issues.
6. Develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
7. Demonstrate the ability to engage in a global environment.

Degree Requirements

This is a 54-credit program that leads to a Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree.

The M.B.A. curriculum is designed as a 54-credit program and normally requires two years or four academic semesters to complete on a full-time basis. It consists of two elements: 36 credits of required core courses and 18 credits of electives. Students are required to complete at least 6 credits of experiential credit. A minimum of 9 credits of electives selected in one area may form a concentration. M.B.A. students may choose a concentration in accounting, entrepreneurship, finance, marketing or supply chain management. Students may select electives from other graduate programs in the University.

Core Courses and Credits

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
MBC 600	Selected Topics (Managerial Skills)	1-6
MBC 601	Economic Foundations of Business	1.5
MBC 602	Economics for International Business	1.5
MBC 606	Information Technology for Decision Support	1.5
MBC 609	Accounting for Managerial Decisions	1.5
MBC 610	Opportunity Recognition and Ideation	1.5
MBC 629	Legal and Ethical Aspects of Management	1.5
MBC 630	Behavior in Organizations	1.5
MBC 631	Financial Accounting	3
MBC 633	Managerial Finance	3
MBC 635	Operations and Supply Chain Management	3
MBC 636	Marketing Management	3
MBC 638	Data Analysis and Decision Making	3
MBC 645	Strategic Management	3
MBC 647	Global Entrepreneurial Management	3
SCM 656	Project Management	3
Selective requirement		3

Free Electives 18

Students are required to complete 6 approved experiential elective credits through at least two distinct experiences. These experiences include internships, consulting, specialized courses, community engagement and other practical experiences.

Accounting

All organizations rely on accounting information to make decisions. Accounting courses emphasize the analysis of accounting information for strategic operating, financial, and tax decisions. In addition to foundation accounting courses, offerings include financial statement analysis, strategic cost analysis, and taxes and business strategy.

Career opportunities for individuals with accounting skills include professional accounting positions in audit, tax, information systems, and consulting, as well as corporate positions as controllers or financial analysts. The M.B.A. program is not designed for those who seek CPA licensure. M.B.A. students who seek CPA certification must carefully choose their electives, and normally will need to take additional courses to meet the educational requirements to be eligible to sit for the Uniform CPA examination.

Entrepreneurship & Emerging Enterprises

The EEE Program offers a unique M.B.A. concentration that combines themes that are critical for sustainable competitive advantage in any modern industry: entrepreneurial management, innovation, and global leadership. The entrepreneurial process is applied in a variety of organizational contexts. The courses in the concentration are designed to reflect a logical flow. Students first take a core course that establishes a strong entrepreneurial foundation, including what entrepreneurial management is, how to think about entrepreneurship, and the implications of entrepreneurial thinking and acting for a student’s approach to venture opportunities. This is followed by two elective EEE courses. The concentration ends with a capstone experience completed during the final semester, where students integrate all of their M.B.A. learning and apply it to the actual creation and implementation of an entrepreneurial concept.

The entrepreneurship concentration is intended as a comprehensive student experience. Accordingly, the program incorporates a number of pedagogical innovations and extracurricular initiatives. In addition to lectures, elective courses will expose students to presentations from entrepreneurs, participation in a novel creativity program, field consulting with existing small businesses, work in local business incubators, hands-on case studies, work with small businesses in completing an entrepreneurial audit, consulting to entrepreneurial family businesses, and the conceptualization and implementation of a new business idea together with a complete business plan and a pitch to a source of venture financing. Students are invited to enter business plans in the Panasci Business Plan Competition, an annual campus-wide competition with more than $40,000 in awards for winners, and other on-campus entrepreneurship competitions. Student initiated ventures can also operate in the Couri Entrepreneurial Hatchery. Each student in the program can be assigned to a successful entrepreneur, who will serve as a mentor. The D’Aniello Entrepreneurial Internship provides students with hands-on experience in an entrepreneurial venture.

Finance

The study and understanding of finance is an integral component of decision-making in all areas of business. Finance is a global, dynamic and exciting discipline. It offers a unique blend of theory and practical applications. Students studying finance should have excellent knowledge of economics and accounting, be able to use quantitative tools, and be willing to function in a world full of challenges and uncertainty. Thus they become members of a profession that can be both intellectually and professionally rewarding. Offerings include courses in financial management, investments, securities markets, international financial management, distress investing, portfolio management, real estate finance, fixed income securities, financial modeling, financial planning, and financial institutions.

The department is also responsible for the offering of statistics courses in the Whitman School. In today’s information age, knowledge of managerial statistics is useful in virtually every functional area of management. The concepts and tools of statistics are used to extract useful information from data to facilitate effective managerial decisions. For example, statistical techniques are used to design marketing studies, sample production units and customers, forecast business and economic conditions, formulate decision models that incorporate risk considerations, model the volatilities in stock returns, and monitor and control performance in a wide variety of managerial processes. The modern manager must be familiar with the assumptions underlying various statistical techniques and should be able to judge their appropriateness in a variety of situations. In addition, he or she should be able to perform selected analyses to voluminous data sets using available computer programs and interpret results in a valid and meaningful way. Courses in managerial statistics prepare students to be both producers and consumers of statistical analyses.

Management

To be successful, organizations must be able to compete in complex and global business environments, and managers must be able to lead within diverse and dynamic workplaces. The Management Department at Whitman offers courses on how organizations, employees, and managers can succeed in meeting today’s business challenges. The Management Department is composed of two areas: management and business law. The faculty members of the Management Department teach courses and conduct research in the areas of strategy, organizational theory, business law, organizational behavior, ethics, leadership, and human resources. The rapidly changing business environment and the growing complexity of organizations, coupled with increased competitive pressures across industries and countries, has made courses from this department important for many careers. The faculty of the Management Department strive to provide the highest-quality classroom experience and have won several teaching awards.

Marketing

The Marketing Department houses two MBA concentrations: Marketing Management and Supply Chain Management. All students of the department are expected to appreciate the interrelatedness of the perspectives of consumers, intermediaries (e.g. retailers, distributors), and suppliers ( e.g. 3PL’s, OEMs, other product or service providers).

The marketing curriculum is flexible and can accommodate interdisciplinary interests. Students can pick and choose from a wide menu of elective courses to build expertise in traditional areas of marketing (product management, marketing communication, and marketing research) and in channel and supply chain management.

Marketing Management Concentration

The marketing management program in the Whitman School is designed for students to encounter all the basic challenges in the industry: how a company decides what to sell, the customers and markets to target, and the best means of reaching them. In many courses, students work in project teams-just as professionals do-to create strategies for product development, pricing, promotion, and distribution. Students learn to respond to the demands of competitors, the government, and larger social issues.

Marketing graduates are prepared for broad and promising career options, including advertising and promotion management, business-to-business marketing, consulting, marketing management, marketing research, new product development, product and brand management, retailing and wholesaling, sales management, and managing a family business.

Supply Chain Management Concentration

All purposeful organizations transform various inputs to some form of output. This may involve the actual manufacturing process of a product or the delivery of a service. In supply chain management, students apply decision-making methods to the design, planning, and control of such transformation systems.

To design and plan the supply chain system, managers must understand aggregate forecasting, location analysis, physical layout, and maintenance policies. Running supply chain systems involves short-run forecasting, capacity planning, scheduling and control, inventory control, and quality and cost control. It is also critical that students understand the design of information systems, which relate all these areas to the activities of other units in the organization.

Since the problems studied in supply chain management are common to all organizations, career opportunities exist in varied public and private organizations including distribution, banking, transportation, health care, government, consulting, and in the more traditional retailing and manufacturing areas.

Real Estate

The real estate track focuses on the development of a skill set and knowledge base to excel in the increasingly competitive landscape of the real estate industry. Curriculum and practical experiences are designed to help you learn to analyze and understand local tax laws, zoning regulations, school districts, contracts, utilities, transportation and much more. An understanding of real estate fundamentals and the capacity to put that knowledge to work in a changing commercial environment is an emphasis of the program. We prepare you to critically examine real estate financial information from diverse and conflicting sources.

Transfer Credit

Students can transfer a maximum of 6 credits of elective coursework. The credits must be graduate level taken from an AACSB accredited business school. A grade of “B” or higher is needed to transfer in the credits. The grade itself does not transfer.

Satisfactory Progress

Students are required to maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher to meet degree requirements.

Business Analytics Track

Program Description

The MBA Business Analytics track is a nine credit option within the MBA program. Students develop an interdisciplinary understanding of the applications of analytics to the fields of accounting, finance, marketing, and supply chain management through techniques in data collection, data visualization, statistical and pattern analysis, and data mining.

MBA concentration in Business Analytics Requirements

1. one required course in analytics core
2. one selective course in analytics applications core
3. one additional selective course in analytics applications or in analytics depth core

Requirements

The business analytics track within the MBA program requires nine credits of analytics coursework:

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
SCM 651	Business Analytics	3
Select one of the following Applied Analytics courses:		3
ACC 652	Accounting Analytics
MAR 653	Marketing Analytics
FIN 654	Financial Analytics
SCM 703	Principles of Management Science
Select one of the following Analytics Depth courses or an additional Applied Analytics course:		3
MAS 766	Linear Statistical Models I: Regression Models
MAS 777	Time Series Modeling and Analysis
MAR 655	Customer Relationship Management with Systems Applications and Products
IST 687	Introduction to Data Science
IST 718	Big Data Analytics
IST 777	Statistical Methods in Information Science and Technology
IST 707	Applied Machine Learning
IST 719	Information Visualization
IST 722	Data Warehouse
IST 776	Research Methods in Information Science and Technology
CSE 581	Introduction to Database Management Systems
CSE 787	Analytical Data Mining
Total Credits		9