The B.B.A. in Finance will equip you with a strong technical knowledge of finance, the ability to critically analyze and solve problems associated with the financial operations of a firm, and experience preparing and presenting business reports through a monetary lens.

Hands-On Course Highlights

Financial Analysis and Introduction to Loan Structuring (FIN 4020)
FI 4020 is a course about understanding and analyzing the financial operations of a business with specific emphasis on the funding needs of public and private, non-financial firms. Companies need capital for a variety of reasons and access to adequate and reasonably priced capital is essential to the survival of any firm. The main focus of this class will be on bank loan capital; however, other sources of capital will also be discussed, especially with regards to determining a firm’s appropriate financial structure.

The primary data used to evaluate a firm’s current financial health and future fund needs are the income statement and the balance sheet. The tools employed to examine this data are financial statement inspection, cash flow statements, financial ratios, common-size financial statements, cash budgets, and proforma statements. This course provides a framework for analyzing a firm’s past, estimating its future performance, and valuing its equity. Key concepts from accounting, finance, economics, and business strategy are integrated and applied to financial decision-making. In this course, students will learn contemporary forecasting and valuation techniques used by practitioners as well as evidence from academic research on the effectiveness of these techniques.

Introduction to Financial Data Analytics (FI 4090)
This course provides the foundation for financial data analytics. The objective of this course is to gain experience in analyzing financial data using modern machine learning techniques, statistical methods, and prediction models. Students will perform data analysis using a statistical programming environment to address a range of financial questions in practice. Students will have hands-on experience in the development of data analytics applications.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Applications in Finance (FI 4092)
This is an advanced undergraduate elective course on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning applications in finance. Students will develop an understanding on how modern machine learning methods and other analytics techniques can be used to address practical problems encountered in asset management, corporation finance, and financial institutions settings. Students will develop programming skills using Python language for the applications of these methods. The techniques discussed will include tree regression, neutral network, textual analysis, web scraping, and data visualization.

Foundations of FinTech (FI 4460)
The financial services industries are changing rapidly with the emergence of financial technology (FinTech). The objective of the course is to provide students with an overview of FinTech and introductions to its applications in financial services, such as commercial and investment banking, digital investing, financial advising, and insurance. Students are expected to develop a broad understanding of the recent FinTech development and its impact on different parts of the financial world. Students will also have hands-on problem solving experiences that can be useful in FinTech applications and innovation. Topics may include but are not limited to: blockchain and cryptocurrencies, smart contracting, P2P lending, crowdfunding, robo-advising, and InsurTech.

Please note: while every section of the above courses might not include exactly the above projects, faculty incorporate real-world learning into the curriculum.

Potential Careers

• Corporate finance
• Commercial banking
• Investment banking
• Hedge funds
• Private equity
• Venture capital
• Financial planning
• Insurance

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The B.B.A. in Marketing program provides students with fundamental preparation in general marketing and an understanding of markets and customers, product development, pricing strategies, advertising and promotion, and methods of distribution. Graduates benefit from innovative and practical curricula that will prepare them for successful marketing careers.

Hands-On Course Highlights

Marketing Metrics (MK 4010)
GSU wants to turn out marketing professionals who can use numbers to compare and evaluate solutions to marketing problems. Decision-makers have to be able to work with numbers in order to be effective. Numbers help to turn vague arguments into provably true or false statements and facilitate comparisons. Numbers create accountability—performance either conforms to projections or it doesn’t. Numbers enhance the ability to improve performance over time by distinguishing between what worked before and what did not. Being ill-equipped to work with numbers is a serious handicap for a marketing professional or for any business decision-maker.

In the short term, students will leave this course better prepared for the marketing capstone course, MK 4900, a case-oriented course where students need to use quantitative information. In the longer term, the ability to use marketing metrics effectively will set marketing professionals apart. Senior decision-makers are demanding increased accountability for past programs and better evidence before authorizing future spending.  Organizations need metrics that capture the impact of marketing programs and distinguish between bad, good and better marketing initiatives, and need people who can manage those metrics.

Social Media Marketing (MK 4305)
In teams of four to six, students act as social media consultants for existing brands from their own research. After researching, planning and identifying objectives, the groups perform an audit and ultimately present a professional social media plan. The class incorporates important social media marketing technologies such as social media dashboards, self-built blog sites, and digital analytics software. Through these approaches, students learn technical, writing and reporting sides of today’s social media marketing.

Principles of Professional Sales (MK 4330)
A significant strategy in business today is developing relationships with potential and existing customers and vendors. The job of developing and enriching these relationships generally falls on the sales force of an organization.  This course, MK4330, will give you an understanding of what salespeople do and help you develop skills necessary to “sell” everything from yourself in a job interview to the latest products and services from your employer.  While many students will use these skills to become an exceptional salesperson, this course will help to develop communication, persuasion and organizational skills that will benefit students and professionals of all fields.  Your professional career will be filled with a variety of one-on-one and group interactions. Whether you choose sales as a career or not, your professional success will reflect your ability to communicate clearly and persuade people to support your ideas and requests.  This class will develop your ability to engage with people, discover their needs, share new ideas, and gain their commitment to act.  We will also learn about sales career opportunities, technology and best practices that can help you succeed in a sales role or when interacting with sales professionals.

Marketing for Entrepreneurs (MK4850)
MK 4850 is a highly experiential, upper-level undergraduate Marketing course where you’ll learn and apply lean marketing approaches to validate critical business model assumptions that drive the success (or failure) of entrepreneurial ventures, startups and small businesses. After learning the core principles of the Business Model Canvas, customer discovery and traction channels, you’ll hypothesize problems, challenges and unmet needs facing YOUR ideal target customers. Then you’ll segment and target early adopters within your ideal customer segment to validate those assumptions through one-on-one problem validation interviews. You’ll also work in startup teams with fellow co-founders (or you can remain a solopreneur) to launch your own startup (or small business enterprise). You’ll design, execute and analyze the effectiveness of multiple lean marketing experiments to test, validate and iterate your startup’s business model assumptions for target customer segments, value propositions, marketing and sales traction channel strategies, revenue models, pricing options, cost structures and overall business financial projections.
So, whether you aspire to be an entrepreneur or not, your commitment to learning and growing in this course will empower you with a “founder’s” mindset and skill set that will strengthen your marketing, sales, leadership, communications, customer engagement and relationship building abilities… all of which will differentiate you as a more valuable and marketable as a leader in today’s business and economic climate!

Marketing Strategy (MK 4900)
MK4900 is the capstone course for marketers that will enable you to synthesize and apply your learnings from previous marketing classes and prepare you for a career in marketing or have the necessary skills to be marketing savvy in your chosen field.  You will be exposed to real-life marketing problems for local clients and will be required to develop budgets, timelines, and deliverables.

You will work in groups to collaboratively develop marketing plans that align with broader company business goals and test your comprehension of and application of marketing principles, “sell-in” your ideas to your client and prepare yourself to be a relevant, immediate contributor to a business.

Please note: while every section of the above courses might not include exactly the above projects, faculty incorporate real-world learning into the curriculum.

Potential Careers

• Market research
• Social media
• Product development
• Advertising
• Distribution
• Retailing
• Analytics
• Brand management

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