Management Science

Catalog description

This course introduces you to quantitative methods and their application to management problems. Its main topics include problem formulation and mathematical programming, sensitivity analysis, simulation, and decision-making under uncertainty. We will apply these models and ways of thinking to several functional areas of business, including operations, marketing, and finance. Management science should be viewed as a toolkit that will empower you to enact meaningful improvements in the organizations that you will be part of. Effective use of the right tools frequently saves businesses millions of dollars, and this course will teach you how to properly use some of the most effective tools in the box. Moreover, you will learn the vocabulary of management science and learn to think like a management scientist, so that you may direct strategic implementations of management science tools in the companies you work for in the future. The practice of management science relies heavily on computers, which use sophisticated algorithms to find optimal or near-optimal solutions to management problems. Our focus will not be on understanding the inner workings of these algorithms, but rather on formulating problems so the computer knows how to solve them. Prerequisite of college statistics course (MATH 147 or CQS 112 or PSYCH 223).