The undergraduate program, leading to a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree, requires students to complete 120 credit hours for those beginning at the freshman level and 90 credit hours for those joining the University as sophomores. Of the total required credit hours, the BBA program requires that 48 credit hours be satisfactorily completed in business courses, with the remainder allocated to liberal arts/non-business courses.

In addition and as a condition for graduation, all students are required to complete successfully a one-credit internship program, a two-hour ETS Major Field Test in Business and three zero-credit pass/fail workshops designed to enhance their soft skills.

Business Requirements

Of the total required credit hours, 48 must be satisfactorily completed in business courses. Of these 48, a general business core comprising 33 credit hours is common to all business students. In addition to this general business core (which includes the three zero-credit workshops mentioned above), the student must complete 15 additional credit hours in business electives (of which 12 must be in one of the following concentration areas: accounting, finance, management, marketing and business information and decision systems; with the remaining 3 credit hours covered by a free business elective). Students who opt for a generic BBA degree must complete the 33 core credit hours, in addition to 15 credit hours in free business electives.

A student may also choose a second concentration by taking for 15 additional credit hours. Thus a student who joined the University as a sophomore would then graduate with a minimum of 105 credit hours, rather than the normal 90, while a student who joined the University at the freshman level would then graduate with a minimum of 135 credit hours, rather than the normal 120. A business student who chooses to pursue two concentrations may not use one (or the same) business elective to fulfill both concentration requirements (i.e., the student must complete two disjoint sets, one for each concentration; each comprising a total of 15 credit hours). A BBA student is allowed to graduate with a maximum of two concentrations, and the student must declare concentration(s) (or lack thereof) no later than the end of the junior year.

Non-Business, Liberal Arts Requirements

Starting at the sophomore level, of the required 90 credit hours of the BBA program, 42 credit hours must be satisfactorily completed in non-business courses. These include 9 credit hours of English, 6 credit hours of Economics, 12 credit hours of civilization sequence and humanities, 6 credit hours of mathematics, 3 credit hours of computer science, 3 credit hours of Arabic and 3 credit hours of a free non-business elective. For a list of specific required non-business courses, refer to the next section.

Students who have taken required non-business courses in their freshman year are exempted from them in the sophomore year. These students must, however, take additional free non-business electives to fulfill the non-business credit hour minimum of 42 required for graduation.