Decision Sciences (DESC)

School of Management

If a student takes noncore, upper-level business courses before acceptance to the School of Management, those courses will not count on an undergraduate degree application for any major in the School of Management (except as general elective credit). A grade of C or higher must be presented on the graduation application for each upper-level course in the major. Prerequisites are strictly enforced. Degree status is defined as formal admission to the School of Management.

210 Statistical Analysis for Management (4:4:0). Prerequisites: MATH 108 or 113. Corequisite: MIS 102. Introduction to the application of statistical methods to support quantitative decision analysis in resolving business problems.

301 Operations Management (3:3:0). Prerequisite: DESC 210. Examines the principal aspects of an organization's operations in various settings. Emphasizes planning and decision making activities associated with the management of operations with a focus on service operations. Analytical models are used to describe key planning and control activities managing operations.

352 Methods and Models of Management Science (3:3:0). Prerequisites: DESC 301; degree status. Operation research for general management. Modeling is through mathematical programming and probabilistic methods. Specific topics include linear programming, integer programming, transportation problems, goal programming, network flow models, decision theory of games, Markov processes, queuing models, and Monte Carlo simulation.

452 Business Forecasting (3:3:0). Prerequisites: DESC210; degree status. Introduction to forecasting that examines alternative models and their application to a variety of business operations. Topics include trend analysis, moving averages, exponential smoothing, adaptive models, multiple regression and correlation, and time series analysis.

499 Independent Study in Decision Sciences (1-3:0:0). Prerequisites: DESC 352; degree status. Investigation of a business problem according to individual interest that uses state-of-the-art decision science methodology. By special arrangement with an instructor and approval from the associate dean for undergraduate programs.