Information Systems

The Business Core provides students with business fundamentals, including finance, accounting, marketing, management, information systems, international business, business law, operations, and entrepreneurship.

The unique teaching approach to these courses follows the overarching Stevens method that combines:

1. the most current theory and research
2. an understanding of how technology can be leveraged for business success
3. applying theory through experiential exercises and cases that develop necessary critical thinking skills to solve complex business problems.

Stevens business courses help students apply their classroom learning to the workforce and careers. Regular guest speakers include business leaders from Wall Street and top New York City-based companies who share first-hand perspectives and insights directly from inside the industry.

In addition to mastering business and technology, successful business leaders today need a well-rounded understanding of and appreciation for the many different fields that complement or influence their own area of expertise.

As such, a significant amount of coursework in the Stevens undergraduate business programs focus on liberal arts and sciences. The curriculum not only provides students with the building blocks necessary to be effective professionals through such courses as writing and communications, but also helps them interact with the world around them through such courses as political science and ethics.

Integral to the Liberal Arts and Science Core is the common freshman experience for all majors at Stevens, which includes a freshman writing and communications course and colloquium, which provides an overview of great works across a variety of fields – from sociology to philosophy.

Students who select an Information Systems major must take six (6) courses in information systems beyond the courses required as part of the business core. These six courses are:

1. CS115 Introduction to Programming
2. BT333 Database Management
3. BT353 Introduction to Project Management
4. BT435 Social Networks: A Marketing Perspective
5. BT421 Systems Analysis & Design, BT 416 Business Process Management, BT421 IT Strategy (note that students will take all 3 courses with 1 course being applied to the IS major and the other course being applied to the required business core curriculum)
6. IS elective

Hands-on experience is unique to Stevens, and has helped propel Stevens to the Top 20 "Most Entrepreneurial Campuses" in the nation by the Princeton Review and Forbes.com.

Indeed, today's competitive and technology-oriented companies seek students who can provide comprehensive, multi-faceted solutions to complex problems. While most business programs offer just one capstone course to help students integrate and apply their course and classroom knowledge, Stevens offers six! The Practice Core focuses on how to apply what is learned in the program to well-established, big businesses, as well as to start-up entrepreneurial environments.

For three of the courses in the Practice core, students focus on developing a high-level understanding of business. Working in teams and guided by a professor who is a former CEO of publicly-traded companies, students follow and analyze the same company throughout four courses. As part of the studies, they perform rigorous due diligence, write strategic plan reports, and give presentations judged by a panel of professors and business leaders. In addition to fostering in-depth analytic skills, these courses help students learn how to think nimbly and proactively, and communicate effectively.

The remaining three courses in the Practice Core are highly experiential and entrepreneurial. Starting in the spring semester of junior year, students take a unique entrepreneurship course, which is focused on identifying business opportunities, particularly those that leverage the latest technology. This leads into the senior year, where students work on a particular project for both fall and spring semesters. Students are given the option of either developing their own business project, or working with a real organization in the New York metro area. For example, one past team worked on developing their own hedge fund leveraging twitter data; whereas another team helped MTV networks with a project that helped unify media content across 14 different networks.

This practical experience has been invaluable to many graduates. For example, Sarah Byrne – a 2012 business graduate – remarks “The Practice Core allowed me to bolster my resume with real experience that directly helped me land a job post-graduation that I really enjoy.”