QTM1000 Quantitative Methods for Business Analytics I
4 CreditsThe course introduces the necessary core quantitative methods that are prerequisites to follow-on courses in QTM and in Babson's integrated core business offerings. Statistical software and the use of spreadsheets are integrated throughout so that students better comprehend the importance of using modern technological tools for effective model building and decision-making. About two thirds of the course is data-oriented, exposing students to basic statistical methods, their conceptual underpinning, such as variability and uncertainty, and their use in the real world. Topics include data collection, descriptive statistics, elementary probability rules and distributions, sampling distributions, and basic inference. The last third of the course is dedicated to selected non-statistical quantitative techniques applied to business models. Topics include curve fitting, differential calculus applications to non-linear optimization, and introduction to the time value of money.
Prerequisites: None
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Mathematics Analytics Science and Technology
- Level: Foundation Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: QTM1000
- Number of Credits: 4
QTM1010 Quantitative Methods for Business Analytics II
4 CreditsThis course explores decision-making problems in a managerial context using algebraic, spreadsheet, graphical, and statistical models. The focus is on understanding basic mathematical and modeling principles through the analysis of real data. The course emphasizes communicating in-context interpretations of the results of analysis in written, visual, and oral form. A foundation in introductory statistics and use of spreadsheets is essential because these concepts are extended and reinforced throughout the course. Topics include introductions to linear regression, time series analysis, linear programming, decision analysis and simulation. It emphasizes the use of appropriate software and the latest technological methods for accessing and analyzing data.
Prerequisites: QTM1000 or AQM1000
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Mathematics Analytics Science and Technology
- Level: Foundation Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: QTM1010
- Number of Credits: 4
QTM3605 Quantitative Analysis of Structural Injustice
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
This course provides a survey of current quantitative methods for analyzing structural disparities. Using philosophies from interdisciplinary fields, we follow examples from education, housing, and other topics to document the direction and size of social and economic disparities. The course begins with a discussion on the philosophies of major data issues. We then learn to analyze disparities using a wide range of data types - spatial, panel, experimental, and observational - through the use of raw, real-world data sets. Discussions will center on biases resulting from data, models, and algorithms. The course uses R and QGIS. Prior to enrolling, students should have a foundation in regression analysis
Prerequisites: AQM2000
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Mathematics Analytics Science and Technology
- Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: QTM3605
- Number of Credits: 4
QTM3635 Quantitative Methods for Machine Learning
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThe ease of data collection coupled with plummeting data storage costs over the last decades have resulted in massive amounts of data that many business organizations have at their fingertips. Effective analysis of those data followed by sound decision-making is what makes a company an analytical competitor. This course is dedicated to learning and applying advanced quantitative tools for solving complex machine learning problems. The course will build on analytical tools learned during AQM 2000 (Predictive Business Analytics) course, introducing modern advanced tools ranging from random forests to support vector machines and artificial neural networks. Each topic covered in this course will be discussed in the context of wide-ranging real-world applications such as email spam prediction; handwritten digit recognition; topic modeling/text mining; etc. The implementation of the introduced topics will be carried out in R/RStudio.
Prerequisites: AQM2000
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Mathematics Analytics Science and Technology
- Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: QTM3635
- Number of Credits: 4
HIS4620 Race and Ethnicity in Latin America
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
What did it mean to be _Black_ or _Indian_ or _White_ in Latin America? What is mestizaje and indigenismo? What did it mean to be of mixed descent? What does these mean today? Is _race_ a means to political empowerment, or the source of discrimination? This seminar explores these issues and ideas in the context of colonial and postcolonial Latin American history. In answering these questions, we will look at a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches to _race._ Armed with the history of these changing ideas, we will then consider a variety of case studies from throughout Latin America.
Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: History and Society
- Level: Advanced Liberal Arts 4600 Requirement (UGrad),Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: HIS4620
- Number of Credits: 4
ART4615 Racing Towards the Future: Early 20th Century Art
(Formerly VSA4615)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsBetween 1900 -1938, young artists grappled with enormous political, scientific, technological, and social disruptions that threw them headlong into the modern world. Styles such as Symbolism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressivism, Dada and Surrealism were their responses to changes in established ways of thinking and being that marked the beginning of the 20th century. Visits to The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Davies Museum of Wellesley College and the Fogg Museum of Harvard University, which have very strong collections from this period, will offer students the opportunity to directly experience this art.
Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Arts and Humanities
- Level: Advanced Liberal Arts 4600 Requirement (UGrad),Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: ART4615
- Number of Credits: 4
CSP2033 Radical Politics: Thought, Action, and Culture
(Formerly CVA2033)
4 Credits
This Intermediate Liberal Arts course examines the theory, actions, claims, and artistic and cultural representations of radical political movements historically and in our time. Radical political movements seek major transformations in the way we live together. Radical movements tend to work outside and even at odds with the mainstream political process that involves political parties and elections. Through an interdisciplinary approach, this course will look at the history and contemporary forms of radical politics, read theoretical and historical works that help us understand different ways to conceptualize a "radical" approach, and assess the radical potential of artistic work. In past courses, we have examined the Alt-Right and Antifa, the Movement for Black Lives, and such Indigenous political struggles as the Standing Rock/#NoDAPL movement in the US context and the #IdleNoMore movement in the Canadian context. Movements such as these - and others such as the 2022 uprising in Iran - will likely be part of the course in Fall 2022, and I adapt course materials to allow us to analyze forms of radical politics that may well be emerging just prior to and during our semester. Other possible movements we might examine include those concerning the environment/climate change, queer struggles, radical feminism, those for and against human migration, and neo-nazi formations. Students will be encouraged to work on projects that examine historical or contemporary radical movements that are in their interest, and in the forms through which they best communicate (written, visual, audio etc). The course will focus on the North American context, but student projects and our discussions do not need to be limited to that context. The materials for this class will include historical and political scholarly analyses, journalism, documentaries, film, literature, music, podcasts, public commentary, and the narratives of activists themselves.
Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: History and Society
- Level: Intermediate Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: CSP2033
- Number of Credits: 4
EPS3540 Raising Money - VC and Private Equity
4 General Credits
Students must be Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors to take this course
This class concentrates on developing a knowledge of the asset classes available for early stage and acquisition funding (both equity and debt). These include money from family and friends, angels (both individual and angel groups), VC funds, private equity, and debt from venture debt funds and special commercial banks. Much of the class is taught from the entrepreneur's perspective, but it will also cover the dynamics of starting and running a VC fund since many of the investor classes rely heavily on the VC when making investment decisions. Case material, lectures, frequent exercises/presentations and guest speakers will provide future entrepreneurs with a detailed understanding of how investors think, analyze and behave.
This understanding is critical so that entrepreneurs can understand the deals they make with investors and how to manage the process to a mutually beneficial conclusion.
Prerequisites: Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors Class standing
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Entrepreneurship
- Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Management (UGrad)
- Course Number: EPS3540
- Number of Credits: 4
EPS7578 Raising Money-venture Capital and Private Equity
3 Credits
By the end of this course, students will be able:
1. To identify different types of private investors
2. To understand into what types of businesses and at what stages different equity investors invest
3. To learn and understand how private investors make their decisions
4. To understand and negotiate detailed term sheets typical of venture capital and private equity deals
5. To be aware of the full investment cycle and how that impacts entrepreneurs
This class concentrates on developing knowledge of the private investor markets: focusing primarily on early-stage venture capital investing (both venture capital funds and angel investors) and later stage private equity investing (buyout funds). We will examine the evolution of private investing and the development of alternative asset classes. Most of the class is taught from the entrepreneur's perspective, but we will learn the dynamics of establishing and operating an institutional VC or private equity fund. A key to successfully raising money from private investors is to understand THEIR business model and structural dynamics. Course materials provide future entrepreneurs with a detailed understanding of how private investors analyze, think and behave so that the entrepreneurs can understand the founding, fund raising and strategic assessment process of the investing entities.
The course will be taught in a BLENDED format, comprised of readings, lectures, case discussions as well as outside guest speakers (both entrepreneurs and investors). There will be weekly asynchronous assignments, two full days of face-to-face instruction and optional weekly synchronous online sessions.
For more information on this course you can watch a video by Clicking Here
Prerequisites: None
- Program: Graduate
- Division: Entrepreneurship
- Level: Graduate Elective (Grad)
- Course Number: EPS7578
- Number of Credits: 3
LIT 4601: Reading the City, Writing the Self: James Joyce's Dublin
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
In this exploration of James Joyce's literary Dublin, we study Joyce's works as a springboard for your own creative non-fiction writing. This course combines expressive writing and literary analysis-and includes a week in Dublin itself!
The Irish writer James Joyce is a towering figure in world literature, a writer who pushed boundaries of both form and content. In his stirring bildungsroman Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his sympathetic yet clear-eyed view of his hometown in the short story collection Dubliners, and his experimental and controversial epic Ulysses, Joyce captured ordinary lives in an extraordinary fashion. In this course you will read selections from all three works, exploring such themes as politics, love, and religion while simultaneously tracing the trajectory of Joyce's innovative style. Furthermore, and drawing inspiration from Joyce's narratives, you will pursue your own creative writing, as you will write personal essays remembering and reflecting upon your experiences and relationships. Finally, in the first week of the course, Dublin itself will be our classroom as we range from its museums to its pubs and traverse the same streets and parks and shores that Joyce and his characters inhabited, gaining all the while a rich and vibrant sense of the city's culture and history.
- Program: Undergraduate
- Division: Arts and Humanities
- Level: Advanced Liberal Arts 4600 Requirement (UGrad),Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
- Course Number: LIT4601
- Number of Credits: 4