What Classes to Take in the Fall

Find the section below that fits your situation. If you are interested in what to take in the Winter, check back to this site later in the year. In the meantime, check out our page describing what you need to do to emphasize BIT.

You Are Entering the BBA Program

If you have heard anything from previous BBAs, you should ignore it because we’ve changed our schedule again this year. Here’s the latest recommendations that we have for you:

You Are Interested in BIT and Have an Elective Available

• Given the new BBA schedule, you’re already taking BIT301 in the Fall. You now have a choice of what classes to take for your BIT elective:

  BIT320
  This course teaches you about databases (how to design, use, and implement them), XML, and data-based Web sites. It is an absolutely fantastic introduction to the BIT curriculum and gives you skills and knowledge that you will need in your internships and jobs.

  BIT355
  This course teaches you how to program using a scripting language (such as Python). The idea of this course is not to make you a professional programmer but to teach you what the programming process is like and to give you the foundation to learn other programming languages (such as Visual Basic) that you might have to learn in the future. Many consulting firms that hire our graduates expect students to have some background in programming.

  These two courses are our most intensive computer-technology-based classes — both classes require a fair amount of time spent working on the computer — so it makes sense for you to take one class in your first year and one class in your second.

  You may already be comfortable with your programming ability because you’ve previously taken some college-level programming course. If that’s the case, then you shouldn’t take BIT355 — your time at the Business School would be better spent on other courses.

• If you’re wondering whether or not to take five classes in the Fall of your first year, you should consider the following. Since (more than likely) you get to take 4 classes only once while you’re at the MBS, you should save that for your senior year either 1) for the Fall of your senior year when you’re looking for a job or 2) for the Winter of your senior year when you’re burned out and don’t want to study any more.

You Are Interested in BIT and Do Not Have an Elective Available

• You should take BIT301 in the Fall. Next Fall you should take both 320 and 355 in order to get the proper technical background for any IS-related job that you hope to land.
• You should not take this previous paragraph as my endorsement that you should put off taking BIT320/355. I believe that the maturity of thinking that you will gain from 320/355 will be of great benefit in later classes. You should take the previous paragraph as reassurance that all is not lost if you end up just taking 301 in the Fall.

You Don't Think You're Interested in BIT

• You should take just BIT301 in the Fall. If, after listening to students discuss how useful BIT301 was and how much applicable skills and knowledge they’ve gained in their BIT classes, you figure out should should have taken another BIT course in the Fall — never fear! You can finish the BIT core sequence even if you start next Fall semester.

You Are Going to be a BBA-II

You are Emphasizing BIT

• By the end of this semester you should have finished both BIT320 and BIT355; you should take whatever courses that you haven’t taken. You will also want to think about taking BIT465, a course that many BBAs (emphasizing BIT or not) have found to be interesting, challenging, and rewarding.

You Are Interested in BIT

• You should take any of our courses in the Fall. None of the courses have any prerequisites beyond BIT301. In 355 you’ll learn how to program using a powerful and easy-to-learn programming language. In 465 you will focus on understanding flows of information and goods while tying together your core courses in marketing, finance, accounting, strategy, HR, OH, and statistics. It provides a great opportunity to answer the question “How does the BBA program all fit together?” In 320 you will learn about databases (how to design, use, and implement them), XML, and data-based Web sites.