Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• QST PL 834: Macroeconomics in the Global Environment
  Macroeconomics is the study of the aggregate behavior of global market participants, i.e. consumers, firms, workers, governments, central banks, foreign investors. Decision making by investment bankers, product/sales managers, policy makers, or consumers inevitably rely on an understanding of the main forces driving GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, and exchange rates. Consider these questions: 1. Should new consumer durable products be launched during recessions? 2. Are countries that experience high productivity growth good investment targets? 3. Will interest rates drop if the US government starts buying back its debt? 4. With significant liquidity demands by the US economy from the public sector, the household sector and businesses, what explains the low US interest rates? Are these factors expected to keep interest rates low also in the future? 5. Can the Euro boost productivity in Europe in the medium to long run and what are the competitiveness challenges for US businesses of such changes? 6. What are the economic effects of wars and how should they be financed? These and other issues will come up in the course. The main goal of this course is to provide a coherent framework that you can use to understand economic events as you confront them in your work environment.
• QST PL 837: Strategic Fundraising and Corporate Philanthropy
  This course is designed to help students develop a sophisticated understanding of the field of philanthropy and its role in building successful nonprofit organizations. The course is designed for students who want to become effective nonprofit managers and development professionals, securing financial resources for charitable organizations from foundations, corporations, and individuals. It is also designed to help students become thoughtful stewards of philanthropic funds as a foundation trustee or program officer, corporate giving officer, or individual philanthropist. Accordingly, the course will alternately adopt the perspective of the grant-seeker and the grant-maker. This approach will help prepare future leaders in the field, whether providers of funding or applicants for it, to understand the current and historical context of their work and to ask the right questions of prospective funders, prospective grantees, and their own organizations. The course will consider diverse viewpoints on philanthropy and explore some alternatives to traditional grant-making.
• QST PL 845: Improving Your Decisions
  The main aim of Improving Your Decisions is to present many of the decision problems managers face and to identify the most effective ways to make sound decisions -- as well as the pitfalls, biases, and mistakes that should be avoided. A key element of the course is to present students with a series of decision challenges: What would you do? In other words, you must come to grips with actual decisions and defend your actions. The assigned readings also convey the most recent research findings in behavioral economics: how individuals and managers actually make decisions. The second half of the course centers on group decision making: how groups with common and not-so-common interests decide. The focus shifts from individual choices to group decisions that embody both competitive and cooperative elements.
• QST PL 850: Social Entrepreneurship
  The Social Entrepreneurship course is designed to: (1) explore the concepts, practices, opportunities, and challenges of social entrepreneurship; (2) provide frameworks and tools that will help students be more effective in this sector; and (3) provide an opportunity for students to create a business plan for a new social enterprise or an income-generating initiative of a nonprofit organization. In the business plan project, student teams will partner with external organizations. Students will identify and analyze opportunities, resources, and risks and apply skills from marketing, accounting, organizational behavior, strategy and other disciplines. Special emphasis will be placed on aspects of business planning and organizational strategy that are particularly challenging or distinctive in the social sector, including mission definition, leadership, organizational structure, raising capital, and measuring results.
• QST PL 851: Sustainable Energy Business Models and Policies
  The course will feature a series of 13 speakers, each from one area of sustainable energy business, in a discussion that connects the business strategy, business model, public policy and regulatory drivers that affect the business. The areas featured include solar and wind energy, the smart grid, energy efficiency businesses, energy storage, and several others. The goal of the course is to (1) introduce business students to this specialized area and to the range of subjects they will need to learn if they intend to pursue a career in this sector; (2) show students how different sustainable energy companies define their business model to respond to transformations and opportunities in their industry, and how that business model interacts with public policies. Students from outside of Questrom may enroll with permission of instructor, based on knowledge of energy technologies, regulation, and basic energy economics.
• QST PL 852: Sustainable Electric Power: The Future Clean Power Ecosystem
  This course will provide a solid understanding of the technology, regulation, and business of electric utilities. It will explain how the electric grid is changing into a sustainable, zero-carbon system - both the technologies and policies. It will also explain the original sales and business models of utilities and how utilities are moving into new lines of business, pricing, and business models. Finally, it will provide an overview of the rapidly expanding commercial clean energy ecosystem that surrounds and interacts with modern utilities.
• QST PL 861: Emerging Issues in Business and Law
  You ask your outside lawyer or your company's legal department whether you can undertake some activity without violating the law. You are annoyed when you are told "Well, maybe. It depends". You want a yes-or-no answer, not a game of twenty questions. Why can't your lawyers give you a straight answer? Why do they make everything more complicated? What language are they speaking? Most business people ask these questions. If you do business you cannot avoid dealing with lawyers. You can allow your interactions with lawyers to frustrate you, or you can learn how lawyers think so that you can better manage them. Emerging Issues in Business Law introduces graduate business students to fundamentals of legal analysis by focusing on timely legal problems of particular interest to business. Students develop familiarity with substantive legal principles and leave the course with the ability to recognize legal issues, discuss them intelligently, and understand why the lawyers seem incapable of giving a simple answer. The course uses lectures to provide a common foundation of knowledge. It is primarily discussion based, using a question and answer format to engage students in the process of legal analysis.
• QST PL 882: Public Policy Analysis
  This course explores the economics of the public sector and the impact government policy and programs have on society and business. The course provides students with tools to systematically examine the financing and measure the impact of government policies and regulations. It explores the rationale for government intervention, appropriate levels of intervention and how to measure the effectiveness of policies and regulations. This course is helpful to those who desire a deeper understanding of the central role government plays in the economy and how government impacts the business and nonprofit sectors.
• QST PL 898: Directed Study: Markets, Public Policy, and Law
  Graduate-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST PL 899: Directed Study: Markets, Public Policy, and Law
  Graduate-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST PL 998: Directed Study: Markets, Public Policy, and Law
  PhD-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST PL 999: Directed Study: Markets, Public Policy, and Law
  PhD-level directed study in Markets, Public Policy, and Law. 1, 2, or 3 cr. Application available on the Graduate Center website.
• QST QM 221: Probabilistic and Statistical Decision-Making for Management
  Exposes students to the fundamentals of probability, decision analysis, and statistics, and their application to business. Topics include probability, decision analysis, distributions, sampling, estimation, hypothesis testing, and chi-square. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning I.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning I
• QST QM 222: Modeling Business Decisions and Market Outcomes
  Examines the use of economic and statistical tools for making business decisions. Topics include optimization (including linear programming), multiple regression, demand modeling, cost modeling, industry analysis (including models of perfect competition, monopoly, and oligopoly), and game theory. The course emphasizes modeling with spreadsheets. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Quantitative Reasoning II.
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  • Quantitative Reasoning II
• QST QM 323: Analytics
  Component of QST SM 323, The Cross Functional Core. Teaches quantitative methods and modeling techniques that will improve the student's ability to make informed decisions in an uncertain world. The two major modules of the course are models for optimal decision-making and decision- making under uncertainty. The first module focuses on methods and predictive models for decision-making; how optimization models are used to identify the best choice; and how choices change in response to changes in the model's parameters (sensitivity analysis). The second module covers the measurement and management of risk and Monte Carlo simulation. Throughout the semester, we will perform hands-on analysis that will improve Excel modeling skills; discuss the ethical use of data analytics; and learn to recognize pitfalls and biases in quantitative decision-making. cr. N
• QST QM 711: Topics in Business Analytics
  This condensed analytics course focuses on how to learn from data, specifically to 1) assess the validity of conclusions that have been drawn from statistical analyses; 2) recognize the extent to which variation characterizes products and processes, and understand the implications of variation on organizational decisions when interpreting data; and 3) portray, summarize and analyze data to support operational and strategic decisions associated with the core business models. Students will increase their understanding of the use of probabilities to reflect uncertainty; how to interpret data in light of uncertainty to assess risk; and how to build and interpret regression models, which can be used to inform core business and organizational decisions.
• QST QM 716: Business Analytics: Data Analysis and Risk
  The overall goal of this course is to improve student ability to learn from data, specifically to 1) assess the validity of conclusions that have been drawn from statistical analyses; 2) recognize the extent to which variation characterizes products and processes, and understand the implications of variation on organizational decisions when interpreting data; and 3) portray, summarize and analyze data to support operational and strategic decisions associated with the core business models. Students will increase their understanding of the use of probabilities to reflect uncertainty; how to interpret data in light of uncertainty to assess risk; and how to build and interpret regression models, which can be used to inform core business and organizational decisions.
• QST QM 717: Data Analysis for Managerial Decision-Making
  The overall goal of this course is to improve student ability to learn from data, specifically to 1) assess the validity of conclusions that have been drawn from statistical analyses; 2) recognize the extent to which variation characterizes products and processes, and understand the implications of variation on organizational decisions when interpreting data; and 3) portray, summarize and analyze data to support operational and strategic decisions associated with the core business models. Students will increase their understanding of the use of probabilities to reflect uncertainty; how to interpret data in light of uncertainty to assess risk; and how to build and interpret regression models, which can be used to inform core business and organizational decisions.
• QST QM 870: R Bootcamp
  This course teaches the essentials of R programming and complements this with knowledge of some of the most popular libraries in data analysis and data visualization. Upon completion, students will apply these skills to a several in-demand applications. No prior programming experience is assumed. The course covers variables, data types and data structures, frames, conditionals and loops, and functions. It also covers reading and writing CSV files, and the core APIs in analysis and visualization. Students will be introduced to the most popular libraries for data analysis in R, such as dplyr, ggplot2, readr, and rmarkdown. These packages will facilitate the workflow and enhance the basic R functionalities; using them, one can clean up a dataset, create elaborate plots, analyze and summarize the data, and produce presentable reports.
• QST QM 880: Business Analytics: Spreadsheet Optimization and Simulation
  The modeling process illustrated throughout the course will significantly improve students? abilities to structure complex problems and derive insights about the value of alternatives. You will develop the skills to formulate and analyze a wide range of models that can aid in managerial decision-making in the functional areas of business. These areas include finance (capital budgeting, cash planning, portfolio optimization, valuing options, hedging investments), marketing (pricing, sales force allocation, planning advertising budgets) and operations (production planning, workforce scheduling, facility location, project management). The course will be taught almost entirely by example, using problems from the main functional areas of business. This course is not for people who want a general introduction to or review of Excel. This course is for students who are already comfortable using Excel and would like to use it to create optimization and simulation models.

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