Program Overview

Master of Business Administration Overview

The Master of Business Administration (MBA) for Executives program at San Francisco State University's Lam Family College of Business is a part-time program delivered over six consecutive semesters. This program is specifically designed for students who maintain full-time careers, allowing them to earn a Master's in Business Administration in 24 months. Students enroll in a specific cohort, engaging as a learning community to accelerate and advance their careers while preparing to become tomorrow's business leaders.

Program Learning Outcomes

The program focuses on several key learning outcomes, including:

• Functional and enterprise knowledge: Demonstrating competence in major business disciplines and understanding the enterprise as a whole, interrelationships of disciplines, and emerging knowledge in business.
• Ethical, global, and social awareness: Being aware of ethical, global, and social issues surrounding key business decisions and acting responsibly.
• Problem-solving and critical thinking skills: Demonstrating effective use of qualitative and quantitative techniques, critical thinking, and analytical ability in solving problems.
• People skills: Demonstrating effective intra and interpersonal skills, especially in dealing with diversity of thought and opinion.
• Communication skills: Demonstrating effective oral and written communication skills, including creating and delivering business presentations and writing professional documents.

Program Requirements

The MBA program requires 30-57 units, including prerequisite courses for conditional admits, prerequisite courses for the MBA program, advanced requirements, electives, and a culminating experience.

Prerequisite Courses

Prerequisite courses offer students without a recent business undergraduate degree the opportunity to learn or refresh knowledge in the basic elements of business. These courses may range from 0 to 24 units, depending on the student's previous academic background. The eight business prerequisite courses are:

• ACCT 780 Financial Accounting
• DS 776 Data Analysis for Managers
• DS 786 Operations Analysis
• ECON 783 Economics for Managers
• ISYS 782 Information Systems for Management
• FIN 785 Financial Management
• MGMT 788 Management Principles and Organizational Behavior
• MKTG 787 Marketing Management

Students who have earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration within the past seven years from an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)-accredited university, with a 3.0 GPA or better, are eligible to waive all MBA program prerequisite courses.

Advanced Requirements

The advanced requirements for the MBA program consist of 12 units, where students select one course from each category:

• Accounting/Quantitative Methods: ACCT 831 Financial Statement Analysis or FIN 819 Financial Analysis and Management
• Ethics/Management: BUS 884 Business Ethics, Society, and Sustainability or MGMT 842 Seminar in Organization Design and Change
• Business Decision-Making: DS 852 Managerial Decision-Making or ISYS 814 Information Systems for Strategic Advantage
• Marketing/Globalization: MKTG 860 Strategic Marketing or IBUS 815 Seminar in International Business

Electives

Students must complete 15 units of advisor-approved electives, with at least three being 800-level courses offered by the College of Business. Up to two may be graduate-level courses within the University with prior advisor approval. A maximum of two prerequisite courses taken at SF State may count as electives.

Culminating Experience

The culminating experience consists of 3 units, where students take BUS 890 & BUS 896 EXM Strategic Management and Culminating Experience Examination.

Advancement to Candidacy

Before being considered for Advancement to Candidacy, the applicant must meet all general University requirements, attend all professional development workshops at orientation, satisfy all prerequisite courses, earn an overall SF State GPA of 3.0 or better, and complete at least 12 units of College of Business advanced requirement courses. When requirements have been satisfied, the graduate advisor may recommend to the Dean of the Division of Graduate Studies that the applicant be advanced to candidacy for the degree by filing the Advancement to Candidacy (ATC) form.

Elective Areas and Graduate Advisors

The program offers various elective areas, each with its own set of graduate advisors:

• Accounting: Hammond, Hetherington, Hsieh, Kim, Sopt
• Decision Sciences/Operations Research: Bollapragada, Cholette, Cheung, Miyaoka, Saltzman, Soorapanth
• Finance: Feldman, M. Li, Liu
• International Business: Heiman, Yang
• Hospitality and Tourism Management: Johnson, Roe, Yang
• Information Systems: Sayeed
• Management: Baack, Desa, Stewart
• Marketing: Bhat, Hussain, Sengupta, Sinapuelas