The BS in Business Analytics and Applied AI (BA&AAI) is designed for undergraduate students interested in pursuing a career in Business (profit or non-profit) organizations and in harnessing the potential of quantitative approaches to understanding business operations and performance, improving and predicting future outcomes, and identifying new opportunities with emerging AI tools. The program provides background in core business disciplines and encourages students to take a variety of courses that build foundational knowledge and skills focused on common applications of analytics and AI in organizations. The program also ensures that students understand both the ethical issues related to using these tools and their potential for improving society in sustainable and ethical ways. This program seeks to engage students in the business uses of analytic and AI methods and tools, to develop their problem-solving and opportunity recognition skills, and to reinforce their new knowledge through experiential learning opportunities. Taken together, WBS undergraduate BA & AAI students will be ready for jobs that create value using modern analytics and AI methods.
The program is covered by the accreditation of WBS by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB- International).
Program Goals and Objectives
Students will learn to:
- transform raw data into actionable insights for better business decisions
- handle data ethically and responsibly to ultimately improve performance, optimize processes, and drive innovation
- analyze data using various AI and Analytics tools
- recognize which tools are appropriate for various business decisions
- recognize which business decisions are amenable to various AI and Analytics tools
- develop and use predictive and prescriptive models
- interpret and communicate the results of statistical and machine learning models in business terms
- identify data-driven opportunities
Mathematics and Science Requirements
Mathematics 5/3 [2/3 Calculus, 2/3 Statistics, 1/3 Linear Algebra]
Computer Science
Basic Science
- Any Course with prefix: BB, CH, GE, PH
Business Foundation
The Business Foundation provides students with a few general business courses so that they have a basic understanding of the financial and organizational aspects of business. As per AACSB, the accreditation body for the Business School, we need to include Accounting/Finance and Organizational literacy courses. MKT 4030 is recommended since it is a capstone course and the place for Assurance of Learning data collection.
Technical and AI Foundation
The Technical and AI Foundation provides students with two technical courses (CS or DS plus Business Data Management) and two Applied AI courses (one providing broad coverage of ethical AI uses in business and one focused on Machine Learning).
Analytics Foundation
The Analytical core introduces students to popular data analysis tools for decision-making in the context of typical business problems in finance, marketing, and operations. The Analytical component equips students with the applied statistical and modeling techniques needed to analyze and make predictions and inferences from complex real-world business data.
Business Analytics and Applied AI Electives
- Elective Category 1, Business Analytics Applications, below enables students to develop additional knowledge and skills in areas of typical business analytics applications.
- Electives Category 2, Computing Technologies, Data and Mathematical Sciences, below enables students to develop additional foundational knowledge and skills in Mathematics, Data Analytics, and Technologies to support Data Analytics.
- Elective Category 3, Business and Entrepreneurship, below enriches students’ general business knowledge.
Select a total of six electives from the following three categories:
MQP
Each student will complete an MQP, which serves as a senior-level capstone for the degree. The MQP is a project-based requirement, typically done with an external business (profit or not-for-profit) and as a student team. The MQP must be advised by a full-time Business School faculty member who teaches Analytics, AI, or STEM courses in the Business School.
Additional Notes:
Each course may only count in one slot within the BS BA&AAI degree program. Students may not double major in Marketing Analytics and Business Analytics & Applied AI programs because of the curriculum overlap between the two programs.
BS/MS Rules for Graduate Business Degree
For students wishing to proceed into a WPI MS Program with similar requirements may take the graduate version of several of the above courses, not to exceed the WPI limit of number of graduate courses that can count toward an undergraduate degree. Due to AACSB accreditation requirements, undergraduate students must be accepted into a graduate business program before they can take graduate business courses. Furthermore, the undergraduate versions of a course do not count for a corresponding graduate course.
Transfer Students and Transfer Credit
WPI welcomes transfer students from other educational institutions and has transfer agreements with many schools. Upon acceptance at WPI, WPI will grant appropriate transfer credit from any accredited two-year or four-year institution. Because of the specialized project-based nature of its degree programs, once students matriculate at WPI, they are expected to take their courses at WPI. WPI students may be allowed to take specialized courses at other institutions and transfer credits to WPI, but only with prior written permission.