Business Minor

The business minor has been designed for students earning degrees outside the College of Business Administration. The minor provides non-business students with a cohesive overview of key areas of business. It is designed to increase students’ preparation for work in business organizations after graduation and their marketability for professional opportunities. Degree-seeking students enrolled in any undergraduate college on Pittsburgh campus (other than the College of Business Administration) are eligible to apply for the minor.

The 18-credit business minor includes five 3-credit courses representing a variety of areas in business, as well as a 3-credit capstone course. The capstone will provide an opportunity for students earning the minor to integrate and apply the material across courses. In addition, students will take at least 11 credits of prerequisite coursework prior to admission to the minor.

Courses towards the business minor must be taken on a letter-grade basis. They may not be taken as Satisfactory/No Credit (S/NC). This includes both the required business courses and the prerequisite courses.

The prerequisite courses for the minor may be fulfilled by Pitt coursework, transfer credit, or AP/IB credit.

A cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 is required across the 6 business courses required for the minor, including the 5 required minor courses and the minor capstone course.  A minimum grade of C- must be earned in each of the 6 business courses for the minor.

Of the 18 credits in required business coursework for the minor, at least 9 credits (half), including the Capstone course, must be completed at Pitt’s Pittsburgh campus. No more than 9 credits may be earned at other institutions (including Pitt regional campuses).

Once enrolled at Pitt, students may not transfer additional business courses from community colleges. Any summer business course transferred must be completed at an AACSB-accredited business school and approved in advance by the College of Business Administration. Students enrolled in the business minor who wish to transfer a summer business course can direct questions here.

Prerequisite Courses for the Business Minor – 11-13 credits

  • ECON 0100 Introduction to Microeconomic Theory (or IE 1040) – 3 credits
  • MATH 0120 Business Calculus (or MATH 0220 or MATH 0235) – 4 credits
  • STAT 1100 Statistics and Probability for Business Management (or STAT 1000, STAT 1151 & 1152, ENGR 0020, IE 1070 & 1071) – 4-6 credits

Required Courses for the Business Minor – 18 credits

  • Students pursuing the minor may only choose Pitt Business courses from the list below.  Enrollment is not permitted for any other Pitt Business courses.

Choose 5 of the following (15 credits):

Helps students become informed users of firms’ external financial reports. The basic structure and contents of such reports and the process by which they are prepared will be studied. Discussion topics will include what items are included in the reports, how such items are measured, and how various economic events affect them. An understanding of what can be inferred from the reports about past performance, present position, and future prospects of the firm will be developed.

Prerequisite: ECON 0100 or 0110

Provides the foundations for two basic business disciplines: optimization and simulation. Various modeling concepts that have origins in and have found wide applications in functional areas such as finance, marketing, and operations will be studied in depth. The topics studied include linear programming; models of “go/no go” decisions and location decisions; “what if” analysis; decision analysis and multiple criteria decision-making models; and queuing models and statistical foundations to simulate business systems—input/output analysis.

Prerequisite: STAT 1100

Provides an overview of topics and concepts in the field of Organizational Behavior (OB). Emphasis is on developing a theoretical grasp of issues and problems and an understanding of practical implications of various theories of human behavior at work. Specific topics include leadership, motivation, teamwork, career issues, work roles, job enrichment, employee participation, and work and non-work integration.

The core course in finance focuses on how companies make sound investment and financing decisions, much of which is also relevant for individual decision making. With regard to the investment decision, the time-value of money, security valuation, capital budgeting, and the tradeoff between risk and expected return are studied. With regard to the financing decision, the cost of capital, financial leverage, and capital structure policies are studied.

Prerequisite: BUSACC 0030, STAT 1100

Provides an understanding of the roles of marketing in the economy and the firm, and develops a rationale for a marketing perspective as a guide to organizational and individual actions. Topics covered are the marketing environment, strategic planning, market segmentation, product development, pricing, distribution, promotion, consumer decision making, control, and marketing management.

Information technology (IT) is a key component and enabler of business transformation. Focuses on how business processes can be (re)designed and business decisions can be supported with emphasis on the IT perspective. Business cases involving IT-driven and IT-enabled decision situations and business transformations are used.

Students who take this course are not required to take BUSECN 1010: Business Economics.

Required (3 credits):

Description to come.

Advising and Career Development

Because the students are in degree programs outside the College of Business Administration, students in the minor will receive advising, placement, internship, and other support from the units in which they are enrolled. The College of Business Administration Advising team will work with advisors from the students’ home units but will assume primary responsibility for advising students pursuing the business minor about the minor courses and requirements and also will certify the business minor for graduation. The College of Business Administration has designated a member of the College of Business Administration Advising team as the point person for the minor to answer questions posed by students pursuing the minor.

Apply to the Business Minor

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