Winter electives

I asked professors in the Ross School who had electives that they thought students should know about or might not already know about to submit information about the course so that I could post it here for your consideration. There are some really nice & interesting classes listed below, if I do say so myself.

BBA2s

ACC/FIN 335: Applied Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management

Professor

Richard Sloan

For more information

Prof. Richard Sloan

Location of the course

Tozzi Center

This course is targeted to BBA2s with an accounting or finance emphasis. Students will work in the Tozzi Center and learn how to use the technology to manage a real investment portfolio. This is the only BBA offering in Tozzi for the year.

Both BBA1s and BBA2s

CSIB/MO 470: Strategic Management of Knowledge in Professional Service Firms

Professor

Lynn Wooten

For more information

Contact Professor Lynn Wooten at 763-0486 or by email at lpwooten@umich.edu

This course provides an overview of the knowledge employee (e.g. accountants, advertising executives, attorneys, consultants) role as organizational problem solver and enabler. Through case studies and experiential exercises, the class introduces students to the strategic architect of professional service firms. During the second half of the semester, the course will have an action-based learning component. Students will work as entry level consultants on a scenario-based consulting engagement that unfolds over several weeks, culminating in a live presentation to an executive board. This Web-based simulated consulting engagement utilizes the latest learning technology to provide a unique networking, and virtual problem solving, experience.

LHC306: Enterprise Organization

Professors

Norm Bishara and Dana Muir

For more information

The course Web site or the professors

LHC306 is useful for all BBAs because it gives a good, practical overview of many of the legal issues facing businesses. Students interested in investment banking, entrepreneurship, or finance will want to take LHC306 because of its coverage of entity organization, securities law, secured financing, and mergers and acquisitions. These topics and general corporation law also will be indispensable to those going into consulting or those considering running their own successful business someday. Future CPAs also should be interested in LHC 306 because it covers concepts that are tested on the CPA exam including the basic laws of entity structure, such as LLPs, LLCs, Partnerships, and Corporations. All BBAs will find the employment law material useful and interesting as they are almost certain to be employees and/or employers at some point in their careers.

ACC318: Financial Statement Analysis

Professor

Reuven Lehavy

For more information

Prof. Lehavy

This course integrates many of the concepts covered in the strategy, finance, and accounting courses into a systematic and coherent framework for analyzing and valuing companies. We first learn how to discern of the nature of the business and its potential risk and success factors. Next, we acquire rigorous tools to understand the firm's financial statements and evaluate its financial performance. Based on the business and financial analyses, we next learn how to forecast the firm's future performance. The final--and perhaps most important--step is the detailed study of how to convert the financial projections and forecasts into an assessment of the firm's value. This capstone course is a must for any business school student. Students who have taken this course previously rave about it (you are encouraged to ask for their opinion!).

BIT358: Human Interface to Information Technology

Professor

Judy Olson

For more information

Judy Olson

Most applications fail because they are built with little knowledge of what the customers really need and what they can do. You can’t find anything on the screen; a small slip creates a huge loss of data; it is too hard to find the features you are looking for. It doesn't have to be this way. The secret is understanding customers' real needs and their capabilities, and then designing to delight them.

This course teaches you how to:

• assess the customer needs for digital products,
• figure out the functionality of a new digital solution, and then
• design an interface to it that is easy to learn, easy to use, and fun.

The course ties together learning and doing. We progress through the whole product development life cycle from product concept (from talking to potential users), to designing it, mocking it up, and advertising it. Past projects included a Palm Caddy (for golf advice), a new interface for selecting movies on demand on airplanes, enhancements to eBooks through a web interface, and new ways to check out at grocery stores. The core of successful design is understanding human beings! So, this is a combination of software development methods and psychology --- quintessentially people-centered.

This course is taught by award winning teacher Professor Judy Olson, who is a leader in the field of Human Computer Interaction (sometimes called CHI for Computer Human Interaction), recently elected to the CHI Academy recognizing her pioneer role in the field. Well organized, interactive, and fun!