Fisher Center for Business Analytics supports a range of educational programs that applies UC Berkeley’s leadership in Data Science to business and reflects the distinct brand of the Berkeley Haas Defining Principles:
Question the Status Quo & Confidence Without Attitude
Questioning the status quo means challenging conventions everywhere and in all aspects of business and life. Confidence Without Attitude means that the confidence to challenge the status quo derives from basing decisions upon evidence and analysis. Based upon these first two guiding principles, the business analytics curriculum at Haas is framed not as a distinct subject but as a part of every discipline.
All students, regardless of degree program or concentration, enroll in Data and Decisions, a core course that creates leaders who are critical consumers of statistical analysis. Topics include an introduction to exploratory statistics and causal analysis.
Students with a deeper interest may subsequently enroll in one or more courses that focus on foundational algorithms and principles of business analytics set in specific domains:
- Marketing Analytics – machine learning models for descriptive and predictive modeling in the context of designing and marketing new products.
- Decision Analytics – machine learning models for causal analysis at the intersection of public policy and business strategy in global health and international business.
- Risk Management and Operations – math programming for prescriptive modeling and simulation at the operations and marketing interface.
Leveraging data in decision making, however, is diffused throughout the entire Haas program. From managing organizations, to finance, to accounting, to real estate, to marketing and operations, Haas electives are imbued with data models and decision frameworks.
Confidence Without Attitude
The defining principle of Confidence Without Attitude also means that Haas trains those who lead through trust and collaboration. Haas does not train data scientists. Rather, Haas trains collaborative decision-makers who know how to lead interdisciplinary teams, integrating domain experts and data scientists.
The Experiential Learning courses at Haas all incorporate elements of qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Students from all disciplines across the University form interdisciplinary teams with Haas students to address corporate, non-profit and entrepreneurial clients with real data.
Project-based learning courses draw the campus to Haas. By contrast, Haas students may pursue advanced study in the theories and technologies underlying business analytics from discipline experts across the University. UC Berkeley’s programs in Statistics, Computer Science, Information, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering continue to define the leading edge of Data Science.
Students Always
Business Analytics evolves as quickly as the underlying science and technology. Haas programs in Business Analytics extend beyond the formal curriculum to support continuing education and industry best practices in at least two ways:
Executive and Professional Education Programs in Business Analytics bring business leaders to campus to continue their lifelong education. Courses in analytics include open-enrollment programs as well as opportunities for custom programs through Berkeley’s Center for Executive Education.
In addition to bringing executives to campus, the Center for Business Analytics facilities idea exchange and thought leadership between industry leaders in a peer-to-peer setting through its CIO Leadership Program.
- Regionally, the Program helps coordinate three regional networks of strategic information technology leaders who meet monthly to educate and support one another (Silicon Valley, San Francisco, East Bay).
- Nationally, the Program, with the Gartner Group, established the Fisher-Hopper Prize for Lifetime Achievement in CIO Leadership. The Prize is named for Don Fisher, founder of The Gap and Max Hopper, former chairman of SABRE Group and a pioneer in extracting marketing leverage from information technology. Each year, the prize ceremony is part of an annual, day-long seminar on strategic information technology