Columbia MSBA Curriculum: Courses, Electives & Concentrations

The MSBA program is a three-semester STEM program which can be completed within 12 months. The program is in partnership with two Columbia Business School divisions: Decision, Risk, and Operations (DRO) and Marketing.

Students enter in the Fall term and can finish as soon as the following August, or engage in a summer internship to complete the program by the end of the following Fall. Students are required to take the equivalent of 12 three-credit courses (36 credits), in the following areas:

  • a minimum of 18 credits (typically 6 courses) within Columbia Engineering, IEOR Department
     
  • a minimum of 12 credits (typically 4-6 courses) within the Columbia Business School, see the listing of historically approved Business School courses
     
  • and the remaining courses (if any) can be taken from Columbia’s other graduate schools including: the School of International and Public Affairs, the Law School, or Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Students are also required to attend a year-long, zero-credit IEOR E4598 Business Analytics Practitioners Seminar Series course (sample syllabus). 

A program plan is available for students to use to plan their studies. This program plan will be used to facilitate a dialogue with the advisement team and your designated faculty advisor. For more course information, students can check out the IEOR course listing.

Core

Core - 12 credits

*Students are expected to be proficient in Python when starting the MSBA program.

Note: IEOR E4650 Business Analytics is counted as IEOR credits.

Core - 6 credits

The MSBA program requires that students take a minimum of 12 CBS and 18 IEOR credits to graduate and students should plan their electives accordingly

Students may satisfy the 12 credits of CBS from our pre-approved list of courses that from other CBS Divisions.  Note that only select CBS courses may be available for ranking and add/drop each term from Course Match.

Breadth Electives

Electives are selected under the advisement of the student's advising team. Courses taken from the School of Professional Studies will not be counted towards the M.S. degree (i.e. courses with the following prefixes: ACTU, BUSI, COPR, IKNS, SUMA, FUND, and more).

Concentrations

Students may complete 1 or 2 concentrations to fulfill the remaining credits for the degree.

Select at least (9 credits) from the following

Select at least (9 credits) from the following

*Students may take MRKT B8602 or MRKT B9656, but not both.

Select at least (9 credits) from the following

*Students may take MRKT B8602 or MRKT B9656, but not both.

Select at least (9 credits) from the following