Interdisciplinary Courses

IDIS 3695. Global Business Perspectives

Through company sites and cultural visits, students learn to appreciate how business operates outside the United States. Country visits are bracketed by class sessions and pre-work followed by project presentations. Content varies based on the expertise of the faculty and the country visited. Past locations include Germany, France, China, New Zealand, Brazil, and India. Prerequisite: Varies by course. (4 units)

IDIS 2700/3700. Effective Business Communications

Intensive practice in forms of communication specifically for business settings, geared to the student's level of prior preparation. The focus will be primarily on oral communication and writing to support the oral communication. Emphasis on communicating complex issues and quantitative data to inform, advocate or persuade. Prerequisite: None. (2 units)

IDIS 3701. Critical Business Presentations

This course is designed to equip the student with speaking and presenting facility in both formal and informal business settings. The class centers around multiple presentations on a variety of topics. Focus will be on learning to shape messages and presentations to different audiences and purposes. This one-unit course will afford an introduction to effective presentation skills that should then be implemented into later coursework and workplace interactions. Business Communication theory, presentation practice and critique, interpersonal interaction in both traditional and social media forums, and conveying qualitative and quantitative information will serve as components of the course. Prerequisite: IDIS 3700. (1 unit)

IDIS 3799. Managing Transitions I and IDIS 3800 Managing Transitions II

These courses prepare students for the career transitions that they will encounter once completing Santa Clara University's MBA program. These highly relevant courses concentrate on the skills students require to succeed early on in their careers. These lessons learned will be applicable to transitions throughout the students' careers. The courses are based on critical transitions, formative experiences, and personal conflict that characterize the common challenges MBAs are likely to face as they progress in their careers. One objective is to help students gain a more robust understanding of some of the pitfalls they may encounter as they make transitions within or across organizations. Research demonstrates that career failures are often associated with individual failures to successfully make these transitions. Blending theory and practice sessions will illustrate the lessons learned by others (such as SV executives) that have sometimes stumbled in making what seem to be straightforward transitions. Why are transitions challenging? Typically transitions require learning new skills and strategies for managing people who have different responsibilities, needs, goals and expectations than the individual has led in the past. For example, the role as an individual team member vs. managing a team requires a shift in mindset from getting a job done through personal skills and effort to getting work done through others; shifting from a manager to a leader requires a shift in attention from focusing on doing things right to doing the right things. Such transitions often mean letting go of the very things that have made us successful in the past and deriving satisfaction from others' accomplishments. Although easy to understand conceptually, this marks a fundamental shift in individuals' identities. Prerequisite: IDIS 3799 is required for enrollment in IDIS 3800. (1 unit)

IDIS 3704. Women in Leadership

Presents the best practices of successful women technology leaders. Features a series of in-depth discussions and case studies where experts share the principles upon which they have created their businesses. Includes topics on vision, value creation, branding, product development and testing, recruitment and team building, management, financing, communication skills, networking, exit strategy and social impact. Prerequisite: None. (1 unit)

IDIS 3711. Leadership: Vision, Deals and Process

Explores three distinct perspectives on leadership: vision, deal making, and process. Features experts with extensive experience in their area. For each perspective, presents a solid overview of the topic, specific skills needed to succeed in the arena, examples of business leaders who have translated ideals into action, and resources for continued learning. Prerequisite: MGMT 501 or MGMT 3500. (1 unit)

IDIS 3797. Curricular Practicum Education

The primary purpose of co-op education is to give international students an opportunity to gain practical knowledge in their field of study. This course is designed to prepare them for such an experience. It consists of a series of lectures on topics that will familiarize them with the Silicon Valley working environment, and will enable them to relate their experiences in the industry to their academic program. Attendance is mandatory. Prerequisites: One year of full-time course work and a GPA of 3.0 or higher. (1 unit)

IDIS 3798. Extended Curricular Practicum Education

Extension of IDIS 3797. Prerequisite: IDIS 3797. (1 unit)

IDIS 3802. Python\ Data science involves the application of scientific methodologies to extract understanding from and make predictions based on data sets from a broad range of sources. The objective of this course is to teach the programming skills relevant to data science. Students will learn the Python programming language, along with a complete set of open source tools for data science in Python, including the IPython Notebook, NumPy, Pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn and many others. Students will learn skills such as importing data, cleaning and transforming data, algorithmic thinking, grouping and aggregation, visualization, time series, and statistical modeling/prediction. Prerequisite: None. (4 units)