The Questrom Undergraduate Program
Real Business Problems and Real Intellectual Engagement
Beginning with your first day at Questrom, you will tackle business problems, work in teams with classmates from around the world, and interact with managers and alumni. Throughout your first year, you will learn about how businesses and markets operate and the importance of their roles in society. In your second or third year, you will write a full business plan for a product that you and your classmates will research and propose. In each of your four years, the undergraduate program will support your ability to explore ideas within Boston University, to understand fields of business at Questrom, and to achieve depth of knowledge in at least one business field of your choosing.
Professional Preparation
Along the way, you will complete a series of career support courses (a ‘careers journey’) that will train you to explore internship and job opportunities, help you develop professional networks, and prepare you for internship and job interviews. Nearly all of our students obtain meaningful work experiences during their time as undergraduates. The collaborative aspects of our coursework and our focus on student extracurricular activities help our graduates become exceptionally professional. Over the past few years, 99% of Questrom graduates have reported obtaining a job (or a position in graduate school) within six months of graduation. When you complete the Questrom BSBA degree program, your business expertise, professional skills, and ability to collaborate will give you substantial advantages relative to your competition in your ability to contribute to the workplace.
Curriculum Overview
The Questrom School of Business curriculum is balanced between a core of requirements and a broad variety of electives. Our aim is to provide a cohesive learning experience that enables students to develop competence with flexibility.
The full-time, four-year BSBA degree program offers 13 concentrations through 14 required 4-unit courses and 5 concentration courses. This includes the 4-unit, experiential Core Innovation Project course.
Required courses are distributed between the Questrom School of Business and the University’s other outstanding schools, as a result of Boston University’s innovative HUB Program for general education.
Upon completion of the BSBA program, students will be able to demonstrate:
- Fundamental business knowledge
- Expertise in at least one business area
- Frontier-level business skills
- Leadership and collaboration
- Expertise in business analytics
- A global perspective
- An innovative approach
- An ethical perspective
Course Requirements
The requirements for the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree appear below. This is a sample curriculum and your actual path will depend on your concentration, your minor, study abroad, and transfer credits.
Students who begin as freshmen will engage in a year-long foundation program through SM131, Business, Ethics, and the Creation of Value, and SM132, Measuring Financial Value. These courses are organized by cohort, so that students will have an opportunity to develop personal and professional connections with colleagues and to thrive during their early academic experiences.
Other early-stage curriculum requirements include Microeconomics (EC101*), Calculus (MA121 or MA123) Writing Seminar, (WR120), Probabilistic & Statistical Decision-Making for Management (QM221), advanced quantitative methods (QM222 or BA222) and The Dynamics of Leading Organizations (MO221). These are typically taken during students’ first or second years in the program.
After completing these courses, students are eligible to take the cross-functional CORE sequence of courses in Sophomore or Junior year. The sequence includes Finance (FE323) Marketing (MK323), Operations Management (OM323), and Business Analytics (QM323). These courses are all taught in a single semester by a coordinated team of faculty and they are paired with a signature experience in which students are placed in teams that design a product from scratch, conduct market research, plan operations and manufacturing, analyze financing, develop a business plan, and, ultimately, pitch their business idea to colleagues, faculty, and experienced professionals.
A number of required courses can be taken flexibly, i.e., anytime after their prerequisites have been satisfied. These include Managerial Accounting (AC222), Information Systems (IS223), and Law (LA245).
Following CORE, students’ only required Questrom class is the Undergraduate Program’s capstone course (SI422). This is typically taken in Junior or Senior Year.
Along the way, students take the coordinated Career Journey sequence of courses (ES110*, ES210* (transfer students take ES215 instead of ES110 and ES210), and ES310). Students may choose to complete at least one concentration. They may take four courses in their consent at any time in the curriculum, though many concentration courses have prerequisites that arrive in the curriculum during sophomore and junior year.
Lastly, like all Boston University students, Questrom students must complete the innovative HUB courses in general education. Many of the Questrom required courses satisfy HUB requirements, but Questrom students will typically take eight non-business courses, five of which are required to come from the College of Arts and Sciences, and three of which may come from any school other than Questrom, and two more of which may come from any BU School, including Questrom. In total, Questrom students complete at least 133 credits during their time at Boston University.
Required Courses
Foundational Courses
COURSE CODE: sm131
COURSE CODE: sm132
COURSE CODE: ec101
The first semester of a standard two-semester sequence for those considering further work in management or economics. Coverage includes economics of households, business firms, and markets; consumer behavior and the demand for commodities; production, costs, and the supply of commodities; price determination; competition and monopoly; efficiency of resource allocation; governmental regulation; income distribution; and poverty. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking. In 2019-20 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Ethical Reasoning, Critical Thinking.
COURSE CODE: wr120
Topic-based seminar in critical reading and writing. Engagement with a variety of sources and practice in writing in a range of genres with particular attention to argumentation, prose style, and revision, informed by reflection and feedback, including individual conferences. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: First-Year Writing Seminar.
COURSE CODE: qm221
COURSE CODE: qm222
or
COURSE CODE: ba222
Examines the use of economic and statistical tools for making business decisions at an advanced level, and prepares students for future study in business analytics. Introduces programming for data analysis (no previous programming knowledge required) and links data analysis to decision making using both spreadsheet modeling and statistical programming. Topics include multiple regression, causal inference, forecasting, predictive analytics, machine learning, demand modeling, and optimization. Case studies apply advanced concepts to practical business problems.
Gateway Courses
*SM131
*SM132
*EC101
*MA121 (or MA123)
*WR120
Core
COURSE CODE: fe323
Introduces students to tools of financial analysis and problems of financial management, including ratio analysis, cash flow projection, financial planning, capital investment analysis, the measurement of risk, and cost of capital. Basic characteristics of capital and money markets, financial institutions, and corporate securities.
COURSE CODE: mk323
Marketing in the context of the firm and society. Emphasizes basic decision-making tools and analytic processes. Examines consumer behavior analyses, advertising and sales promotion, pricing, selection of distribution channels, and product and new product policy.
COURSE CODE: om323
Focuses on the principal issues confronting an operations manager: product and process design; process analysis; planning; and quality assurance and control.
COURSE CODE: qm323
Floating Requirements (which can be taken anytime after the Gateway Suite)
COURSE CODE: ac222
Introduction to basic principles, methods, and challenges of moden mangerial accounting. Traditional topics such as job-ordering, cost-volume-profit analysis, budgeting and variance analysis, segment reporting and profitability analysis, relevant costs for decision making, and cost-plus pricing. Emerging topics such as Activity-Based Cost (ABC) accounting and cost management; performance measurement for Just-In-Time (JIT) and Flexible-Manufacturing-Systems (FMS) environments; the cost of quality; and targeting costing. Material examined from the perspective of students preparing to use management accounting information as managers, to support decision making (pricing, product mix decisions, sourcing decisions, technology decisions) and short- and long-term planning, and to measure, evaluate, and reward performance.
COURSE CODE: is223
COURSE CODE: la245
Provides an overview of the Americanlegal system. Covers basic principles of law in addition to specificsubstantive areas such as torts, contracts, business organizations,employment law, and antitrust.
COURSE CODE: ec102
The second semester of a standard two-semester sequence for those considering further work in management or economics. National economic performance; the problems of recession, unemployment, and inflation; money creation, government spending, and taxation; economic policies for full employment and price stability; and international trade and payments. Carries social science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub area: Social Inquiry I. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
Capstone & Concentrations
COURSE CODE: si422
This course provides students with a powerful set of tools which will prepare them to analyze, formulate, and implement business unit and corporate-level strategy with the aim of attaining sustainable competitive advantage. MG 422 adopts the perspective of the general manager, challenging student knowledge in each functional area in the effort to create integrative strategies that serve the needs of shareholders, as well as other stakeholders inside and outside the company. The course includes conceptual readings, which elucidate the fundamental concepts and frameworks of strategic management, as well as case analyses, which enable students to apply their knowledge to real-world situations and managerial decisions. The class culminates with a final project, which requires student teams to perform a complete strategic analysis on a public company, considering its industry environment and dynamics, its strategic positioning and internal resources, and proposing a course of action for the firm to respond to its strategic challenges. 4 cr.
Plus four concentration courses
Career Journey
COURSE CODE: es110
COURSE CODE: es210
COURSE CODE: es310
*ES110
*ES210
ES310
* transfer students take ES215 instead of ES110 & ES210
BU Hub Requirements, Courses Outside of Questrom, & Free Electives
This is Boston University’s novel program in General Education (link here). Many Questrom courses count for HUB credit.
5 Courses in CAS
3 Non-Questrom Courses
2 Free Electives that can be taken anywhere at BU, including Questrom
Concentrations, Dual Degrees, and Minors
Dual Degrees
Dual degrees are available to Questrom undergraduates through numerous other undergraduate schools in the University. The most popular dual degrees for Questrom students include Economics, International Relations, and Communications. A variety of minors are also available to undergraduates, including Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Energy, both of which have significant Questrom coursework and faculty involvement and leadership.
Explore the possibilities
Students wishing to pursue dual bachelor’s degrees may enroll simultaneously in the Questrom School of Business and another undergraduate school or college within Boston University.
Concentrations
All Questrom undergraduates must complete at least one concentration, which consists of four advanced courses. You can complete one of our twelve pre-designed concentrations (e.g., Finance or Marketing) or you can design your own using the Independent Concentration. Many concentrations have courses that can be taken before you complete the Cross-Functional Core semester and other courses that build directly upon the knowledge you receive in “Core.”
- Accounting
- Business Analytics
- Finance (must choose a track), tracks include Banking, Corporate Finance, Investment Management, and General Finance
- Global Business
- Independent Concentration
- Information Systems
- Innovation & Entrepreneurship
- Law
- Management and Organizations
- Marketing
- Operations & Supply Chain Management
- Real Estate
- Strategy
Minors
Pursuing a minor is optional, but if you’re passionate about something beyond business, BU offers more than 90 minor programs. You can pursue a minor inside or outside of Questrom. A minimum of twelve credits must be unique to any minor and may not count toward the fulfillment of majors or additional minors.
Discover minor programs at BU
A list of minors can be found in BU’s academic bulletin.