People skills and knowledge of business fundamentals can position engineers for the creation and delivery of more effective solutions. Teamwork, communication, and collaboration are skills that you’ll need as you interface with others—especially when you’re tasked with delivering sophisticated solutions to clients or customers.
Understanding how core business functions “work” and how stakeholders measure success will help you gain support and resources to turn your engineering ideas into reality. With the Dyson business minor for engineers (DBME), you’ll begin to understand how managers think and how finance, marketing, accounting, and operations can affect business decisions.
Eligibility
The DBME is open to students majoring in certain engineering subjects within Cornell’s colleges listed below.
All undergraduate majors in the College of Engineering are eligible. However, there is a difference in requirements for students majoring in Operations Research and Engineering (ORIE), so ORIE students must pursue the DBME-ORIE option.
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College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
- Biological Engineering
- Environmental Engineering
- Information Science
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College of Arts and Sciences
- Computer Science
- Information Science
Academic Policies
A minimum of 12 unique credits (outside of major’s core discipline) must be taken to complete any/all minors. Some majors may be required to take an additional course to satisfy this requirement. Students may not use course codes within their home college/major to satisfy minor requirements unless noted as an approved overlap (ex. ECON 1110, ORIE 3150). All courses must be taken for a letter grade, and a grade of C or better is required.
Required Credits
This minor requires a toal of 16.5 credits to complete, which includes 3 foundation credits and 13.5 core credits. From the total credits, 9 must be taken at Cornell University, and 7.5 must be Johnson College of Business (JCB) courses, which include any course code of AEM, HADM, NBA, or NCC. *Note - in many cases, the Cornell and JCB requirements will overlap (e.g. AEM 2241: Finance is a JCB course and a Cornell course, so it will satisfy 3 credits for each requirement).
Foundation Course
This minor requires 3 credits in microeconomics. We recommend taking this course before taking the minor’s core courses and require it to be completed by your sixth semester. A letter grade of C or better is required.
Introductory Microeconomics (3 credits)
One of the following courses is required:
Core Requirements
The remaining 13.5 credits must be fulfilled by taking courses in the five areas listed below, which includes 3 credits that are related to your career goals. A letter grade of C or better is required. Please note that 7.5 credits must be Johnson College of Business (JCB) courses.
Introduction to Basic Business Concepts (3 credits)
One of the following courses is required:
Accounting Principles (3 credits)
One of the following courses is required:
*Students in the ORIE major must take ORIE 3150, which will satisfy both a core ORIE requirement and part of the DBME accounting requirement. ORIE students are also required to take an advanced accounting course (3 credits). Please refer to the website for advanced course options.
Finance (3 credits)
One of the following courses is required:
Capstone Course (1.5 credits)
The following course is required:
Career Goals (3 credits)
The remaining 3 credits for the DBME should align with your career goals. Given the breadth of Engineering careers, there is a wide range of courses under the topics of accounting, finance, entrepreneurship, management, and marketing. Please use the AEM Concentrations within Dyson and Specializations within Nolan as your guide to select a course based on your career goals. Most College of Business (AEM, HADM, NBA, NCC) upper level courses (3000+) are acceptable. Please note that many of these courses may give preference to Dyson/Nolan majors and/or have specific prerequisite courses outside of the minor.
*Note: ORIE majors may not use the following courses to fulfill this requirement