Business Analytics Minor

The Business Analytics minor, consisting of 15 credits, is open to all students except for Business Analytics majors. The minor intends to prepare students to work as business analytics professionals that are highly sought by organizations that value exploring data to gain business insights. Business Analytics minor students will gain cutting-edge analytics knowledge and skills that enable them to collect and analyze data from a variety of sources and then identify and deliver insights critical to organizational success. To complete the minor, students will take two required courses in Business Analytics and three additional elective courses.

Student Learning Outcomes:

  • Students will gain a deep understanding of the role of analytics in business value creation and decision making.
  • Students will develop competencies in identifying, collecting, cleaning, preparing, and analyzing data, and communicating their data analysis results to designated audiences.

About Academic Minors

Farmingdale State College students are invited to enhance their studies with an "Academic Minor." A minor is a cluster of thematically related courses drawn from one or more departments. In addition to department based minors (e.g. computer programming & info systems), interdisciplinary minors are also available (e.g. legal studies).

Academic minors are approved by the College-Wide Curriculum Committee and the Provost. Students must make application for an academic minor through the department offering the minor in conjunction with the Registrar's Office Specific course work must be determined in consultation with a faculty member in the department offering the minor. A statement of successful completion of the academic minor will appear on the student's transcript at the time of graduation.

  • A minor is considered to be an optional supplement to a student's major program of study.
  • Completion of a minor is not a graduation requirement and is subject to the availability of the courses selected. However, if the requirements for a minor are not completed prior to certification of graduation in the major, it will be assumed that the minor has been dropped. Consequently, the student will only be certified for graduation in their primary major.
  • Only students in 4 year baccalaureate programs can apply for a minor.
  • A minor should consist of 15 to 21 credits.
  • At least 12 credits must be in courses at the 200 level or higher.
  • At least 9 credits must be residency credits.
  • Specific requirements for each minor are determined by the department granting the minor. 
  • Students must maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of at least 2.0 in their minor.  Some minors may require a higher GPA.
  • Students are prohibited from declaring a minor in the same discipline as their major (e.g. one cannot combine an applied math minor with an applied math major). Academic minors may not apply to all curricula.
  • Students are permitted to double-count courses.
  • Students are only permitted to take more than one minor with appropriate written approval of their department chair or curriculum Dean.

Admission to Farmingdale State College - State University of New York is based on the qualifications of the applicant without regard to age, sex, marital or military status, race, color, creed, religion, national origin, disability or sexual orientation.

Business | Dr. Nanda Viswanathan | business@farmingdale.edu | 934-420-2015

Fall 2024

Subject to revision

Required: (6 credits)
BUS 111 Introduction to Business OR
BUS 109 Management Theories and Practices 3
BUS 345 Foundations of Business Analytics 3

In consultation with their advisors, students may apply to take three electives from the following list (9 credits):

MTH 246 Introduction to Financial Mathematics OR
BUS 308 Quantitative Techniques in Finance 3
BUS 340 Advanced Business Statistics OR
ECO 380 Econometrics 3
BUS 385 Business Data Management OR
CSC 363 Data Management 3
BUS 442 Human Resources Analytics 3
BUS 346 Social Media Analytics 3
BUS 440 Visual Analytics 3
BUS 445 Advanced Business Analytics 3
ECO 480 Forecasting 3

Curriculum Summary

Total Credits: 15

BUS 111 Introduction to Business

This course introduces the student to the fundamentals of American Business and its contemporary environment. It provides an overview of organizational, national, and international trends and their impact on enterprises both large and small. The course develops an understanding of important business concepts, principles, and practices that explain how businesses are formed, how they operate to accomplish their goals, and why/how their success depends on effective management, production, marketing and finance/accounting.

BUS 109 Management Theories and Practices

This introductory course covers management principles pertaining to human resources, individual behavior in organizations, employee motivation and performance, and business ethics. Topics also include managing and the manager’s job; planning and decision making; employee performance appraisal and feedback; leadership and influence processes; interpersonal relations and communication; and managing work groups and teams.

BUS 345 Foundations of Business Analytics

This course introduces the primary business analytics concepts and tools. The course presents an overview of basic statistics, data mining, data visualization, optimization, and decision analysis. The course incorporates the use of Excel spreadsheet modeling capabilities in order to prepare students to model and solve real world problems. Prerequisite(s): BUS 240 or MTH 110 with a grade of C or higher

MTH 246 Introduction to Financial Mathematics

This is a course designed to introduce the basic concepts of financial mathematics including cashflows, the time value of money, compounding, and present and future value calculations for loans, annuities, and bonds. The course presents the basic no-arbitrage principal to derive forward interest rates and stock prices as well as the prices of futures contracts. Students will be introduced to options, their characteristics, and put-call parity and will analyze the valuation of calls and puts, and general contingent claims, in the framework of the classical one-period binomial model. Prerequisite(s): MTH 130 or MTH 150

BUS 308 Quantitative Techniques in Finance

This course connects key mathematical concepts to the quantitative aspects of finance. Students will gain a deeper understanding of financial math. Students will analyze cash flows to arrive at fair asset prices, calculate advanced calculus equations to understand how businesses use optimization to make financial decisions, and analyze matrices for optimal portfolio selection. Topics include time value of money, annuities "and cash flows, bonds, portfolios optimization, derivatives, options, and hedging and investment strategies. Prerequisite(s): BUS 307

BUS 340 Advanced Business Statistics

This course covers advanced statistical concepts and techniques as applied to decision making and business applications. Topics include: estimating population values, hypothesis testing for one and two populations, analysis of variance, linear regression and correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis and model building, statistical process control, analyzing and forecasting time-series data, and decision-making analysis. Prerequisite(s): BUS 240, statistics course or Department approval.

ECO 380 Econometrics

Students will learn and apply statistical methods used in empirical economic analysis. The course will cover the following topics: the fundamentals of probability and statistics, hypothesis testing, multivariate linear regression using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), the statistical properties of OLS under less than ideal circumstances, the use of dummy variables, and specification analysis. Prerequisite(s): (MTH 110 or BUS 240 or MTH 341) and (ECO 156 or ECO 157) and (MTH 116 or MTH 117 or MTH 129) and Junior level status.

BUS 385 Business Data Management

In this course students will learn the concepts, principles and techniques used to collect, store, and retrieve data for business purposes. The objective of the course is to provide students with a background that allows them to understand management of data in the context of business organizations and corporations. Topics include a review of data types, modeling data in the organization and database design; an introduction to SQL and an introduction to data warehousing and big data. Prerequisite(s): MTH 116 with a grade of C or higher and Junior level status

CSC 363 Data Management

This course focuses on the study of data and its storage with an emphasis on relational database technology and exposure to NoSQL. Students will learn the entire process of database development from data gathering to querying a fully normalized relational database. Prerequisite(s): CSC 211 or BCS 230 with a grade of C or higher

BUS 442 Human Resources Analytics

This course covers business analytics in the area of human resource management. The primary emphasis of this course is on the application of data analytics in the areas of staffing/selection, training and development, performance appraisal, and pay for performance. Topics also include building selection and performance assessment measures that are statistically reliable and valid, as well as analyzing and applying those measures using CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis), OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) regression, and logistic regression. Prerequisite(s): BUS 240 or equivalent and Junior Level Standing or department approval

BUS 346 Social Media Analytics

This course provides a general introduction to students about the use of social media analytics in business. Students will develop skills in collecting data from major social media platforms and analyzing data for business value creation using appropriate tools including Python and R. Topics include value creation of social media analytics, alignment of social media analytics with business strategy, data collection and analysis, and social media analytics platforms. Students will practice social media data collection and develop analytical skills. Prerequisite(s): MTH 110 or BUS 240 both with a grade of C or higher.

BUS 440 Visual Analytics

This course focuses on the visualization techniques used to represent Business Information. The course enables students to answer three questions: What data do the final users need to see? What is the most effective way to develop and design the representation of data? How could the proposed visual representation be constructed? Topics covered include information visualization techniques for abstract data, visualization for spatial data, and visual analytical techniques applied to data transformation and visual exploration. This course is hands-on work intensive and helps develop skills in the use of modern visualization tools. Prerequisite(s): EGL 101 and BUS 340 with a grade of C or higher

BUS 445 Advanced Business Analytics

This course focuses on the advanced tools and techniques used in business analytics. The course is divided in two major areas: machine learning and social network analytics. The first part will focus on key concept from machine learning such as nearest neighbors, decision trees and neural networks. R is the main tool used to implement these techniques. The second part is focused on tools and techniques used to analyze social networks structures and develop solutions to aid decision making. Prerequisite(s): BUS 340 with a grade of C or higher

ECO 480 Forecasting

This course the methodology and applications of econometric forecasting and time series analysis. Topics include linear regression model, stationarity, modeling seasonality, arima models, and volatility. Prerequisite(s): (ECO 380 and 260) or (ECO 262 and 255 or ECO 270)

Last Modified 6/17/24