BBA

Why Should You Emphasize BIT?

Overview

Our undergraduate Computer & Information Systems (BIT) program emphasizes skills in three areas:

• the fundamentals of business administration (from the required BBA courses),
• a deep understanding of the role information systems play in business strategy, management, and operations, and
• technical competence suitable to analyze genuine business problems from an IS perspective, and to design, build, and maintain real-to-life, easy-to-use systems that solve them.

These skills are gained by taking classes that, in addition to grounding them in the appropriate theory, provide hands-on experience with development tools that are widely used by organizations world wide. Tying theory to hands-on experience ensures that students is gain practical knowledge and marketable skills.

You Gotta Understand Technology!

If you’re going to work in business and are going to try to have an impact on how your company does business — how well it coordinates with other companies, how efficiently it conducts its business, how well it manages the knowledge of its employees — then you have to understand technology. And if you are going to the UMBS, the best place to get this kind of understanding is by emphasizing BIT.

Career Opportunities

The BIT department is looking for students who like to work with computers, who enjoy problem solving, and who like working in teams to solve complex business problems. Potential employers realize that students who emphasize BIT have these qualities and have gained a deep understanding of computers and their potential benefits for business. They tend to hire our students for what we call either a business analyst or an IS-savvy manager.

• The business analyst looks at the business processes of a firm and determines how IS might best be applied to the situation. Different types of analysts require different levels of abilities related to implementing technological solutions (e.g., programming). This position requires an understanding of process modeling and system design.
• The IS-savvy manager (or consultant) works in any field but understands how to use computers in his/her job, how to apply computers to business problems, and how to identify potential areas where IS might be applied.