Program Details

Learn business by doing business! The MS Business program is 11 months long and is designed for students with less than 12 months of work experience after completing their undergraduate degree. Students coming directly from their undergraduate degree program can earn their Master of Science in Business in one additional year of graduate study.

Curriculum

Mays Business School offers the 36-credit hour MS Business program as a single-cohort, action-based, purposely designed curriculum intended to develop core business acumen, cultivate leadership skills, and dynamically enhance your professional marketability in an increasingly competitive job market. Our students learn business by doing business, together, from some of the best faculty Mays has to offer.

Full MS-Business Curriculum:

  • ACCT 705 Accounting for Business Results (2 hours)
  • ACCT 710 Accounting for Managerial Decision Making (2 hours)
  • BUAD 700 Value Creation (2 hours)
  • BUAD 701 Business Collaboration (1 hour)
  • BUAD 702 Career Management (2 hours)
  • BUAD 705 Business Communications and Professional Presence (3 hours)
  • BUAD 710 Ethical Decision Making and Conduct (2 hours)
  • BUAD 715 International Business Environment (2 hours)
  • BUAD 720 Integrated Business Experience (4 hours)
  • FINC 705 Corporate Financial Decisions (2 hours)
  • FINC 710 Entrepreneurial Finance (2 hours)
  • ISTM 705 Information Management for Decision Making (2 hours)
  • MGMT 705 Strategic Human Capital (2 hours)
  • MGMT 710 Crafting Business Strategy (2 hours)
  • MKTG 705 Market and Customer Insights (2 hours)
  • MKTG 710 Strategic Marketing Decisions (2 hours)
  • SCMT 705 Global Operations (2 hours)

Prerequisites

Candidates must receive an “A” or “B” in the following prerequisite courses (or an acceptable equivalent) by the time they enter the program. Contact the MS Business program office (msbusiness@mays.tamu.edu) to determine if a course you have taken or intend to take is an acceptable equivalent (include a copy of the course syllabus if possible).

Program Courses

Mays Business School offers this 36-credit hour program as a single-cohort, action-based, purposely-designed curriculum intended to help students develop core business acumen, cultivate leadership skills, and dynamically enhance professional marketability in an increasingly competitive job market.

The 18 courses will be delivered across the 5 educational blocks as follows.

Block 1 (Summer)

  • BUAD 700 Value Creation (2 hours)
  • BUAD 701 Business Collaboration (1 hour)
  • BUAD 702 Career Management (1 hour)
  • MKTG 705 Market and Consumer Insights (2 hours)

Block 2 (Fall)

  • BUAD 702 Career Management (1 hour)
  • ACCT 705 Accounting for Business Results (2 hours)
  • MGMT 705 Strategic Human Capital (2 hours)

Block 2 – 3 (Fall)

  • BUAD 705 Business Communications and Professional Presence (3 hours)
  • BUAD 720 Integrated Business Experience (4 hours)

Block 3 (Fall)

  • ACCT 710 Accounting for Managerial Decision Making (2 hours)
  • FINC 705 Corporate Financial Decision (2 hours)

Block 4 (Spring)

  • MGMT 710 Crafting Business Strategy (2 hours)
  • ISTM 705 Information Management for Decision Making (2 hours)
  • MKTG 710 Strategic Marketing Decisions (2 hours)
  • SCMT 705 Global Operations (2 hours)

Block 5 (Spring)

  • BUAD 710 Ethical Decision Making and Conduct (2 hours)
  • BUAD 715 International Business Environment (2 hours) [3]
  • FINC 710 Entrepreneurial Finance (2 hours)

[1] The BUAD 705 course is taught across blocks 2-5 in the program. The four (4) credit hours for the course are assigned to Block 2 for tuition and fee billing purposes.

[2] The BUAD 720 course is taught across Block 2 and Block 3. The four (4) credit hours for the course are assigned to Block 2 for tuition and fee billing purposes.

[3] The BUAD 715 course includes a study abroad field trip.

Integrated Business Experience

Female student making a thumbs-up gesture while smiling.

A focal theme of the MS Business program is “learning business by doing business.” In addition to an emphasis on experiential and team-based learning in all of the MS Business courses, the program includes the BUAD 720, Integrated Business Experience (IBE), course as part of the Mays vibrant learning community. In the IBE course, students create a business and organize a service entity which will enable them to learn business by doing business.

Students work in teams of 5-6 to form companies. Each company identifies a product or service they would like to sell, conducts market research to determine how their product would be received, develops a business plan for a new company, and requests up to $3,000 in start-up funds from loan officers of a financial institution. Aggieland Credit Union partnered with the MS Business program to provide funding for up to 10-12 companies each year.

After a successful pitch to the loan officers, the companies use the funds obtained from the loan to run their business for the remainder of the academic semester. Running the business includes activities like negotiating with a manufacturer to produce their product idea or working with vendors to purchase the raw material to use for producing their product; creating websites and social media profiles to use for selling; collecting payments from customers; paying vendors or other creditors; and delivering products.

At the end of the semester, each company closes their business and donates the profits from the business to a non-profit organization. In addition, students organize a service entity that works with a local, non-profit, charitable organization by contributing service hours. The integrated business experience allows students to integrate what they learn from other courses in the program into a singular experience of running a business.