Artificial Intelligence for Business Minor
The Artificial Intelligence minor provides students from all majors across the university with an opportunity to understand how artificial intelligence and machine learning are applied in business contexts, including applications in data mining, data visualization, and other data-driven technologies.
Industry research organizations have documented the rapid growth of global data volumes over the past decade, with worldwide data creation increasing from tens to hundreds of zettabytes in a relatively short period of time. A zettabyte is approximately one trillion gigabytes. Much of this data now resides in cloud-based platforms and includes not only structured data, but also text, images, documents, and other unstructured information.
This dramatic expansion of data presents both enormous opportunities and significant challenges for organizations seeking to turn information into insight and action.
Recent advances in generative artificial intelligence — including large language models (LLMs) that power tools such as ChatGPT — have transformed how organizations interact with data. These technologies make it possible to analyze, summarize, and generate insights from complex and unstructured information at scale, complementing more traditional approaches such as data mining, data visualization, and predictive modeling.
The Artificial Intelligence minor prepares students to understand how these technologies are used in business decision-making, strategy, and operations, and to critically evaluate their capabilities, limitations, and ethical implications in organizational settings.
Goal 1: Students will be able to demonstrate a conceptual and intuitive understanding of the common machine learning algorithms (inc. Supervised and Unsupervised Learning) and when each kind of technique may be appropriate.
Goal 2: Students will be able to define the structure and components of a Python program (using loops, decision statements, functions, and libraries). Additionally, they will be able to work with Python libraries for data processing, and data visualization.
Goal 3: Students will be able to design and implement various machine learning algorithms in a range of business applications.
Goal 4: Students will demonstrate the use of data mining models that can identify hidden patterns and rules.
Goal 5: Students will be able to communicate clearly and effectively in composing and delivering oral presentations to the target audience.