The fast pace of the MBAN necessitates that all students have a foundational proficiency in Quantitative Methods and familiarity with Programming and Statistics and R. To aid in ensuring that you have adequate knowledge in the above subjects, we have liaised with your program instructors to compile a list of online academic prep tutorials for you to review as you prepare for your program.
Each of you comes to the program with a different academic background and different work experiences, so your familiarity with the academic prep tutorials will also vary. It may be that some of the resources on this list are very familiar to you, and you can just quickly review them to make sure you are up to speed, or it may be that you have never covered some of them, and you will need to learn them in depth.
When your classes begin in September 2023, you will need to be familiar with all of the material listed on the academic prep resource list, as classes move along very quickly, and you will need to be able to keep up with your classmates.
All resources below are from Khan Academy unless otherwise indicated. If you have feedback about these academic prep materials, please send it to askmban@sauder.ubc.ca.
Any resources on LinkedIn Learning can be accessed for free with a UBC student email address. To set up your email address, click here
Instructions
Where to begin: Review each section and complete those areas you are currently not comfortable with. Most tutorials include quizzes and practice tests, so completing these is a good way to quickly review if you are familiar with the content.
If you'd like to track your learning progress, you can sign up for a user account with Khan Academy, but it's not required.
Disclaimer: These tutorials have not been vetted in-depth. They have been selected based on the concepts included and tutorial descriptions. You are encouraged to explore the content and cover concepts you are unfamiliar with. The aim is to ensure that you have foundational proficiency in these topics, but not all concepts may apply directly to course work.
All resources are from Khan Academy, unless otherwise indicated.
If you have feedback about these academic prep materials, please send it to askmban@sauder.ubc.ca.
Algebra
- Algebra 1
- Algebra 2
- Introduction to Algebra
- Algebraic Expressions
- Simplifying Expressions
- Exponents
- Basic Fractional Exponents
- Introduction to Logarithms
- Systems of Equations
- Algebraic Equations
Ratio, Proportion and Percent
Linear Systems
Statistics
- Displaying & Describing Data
- Modelling Distributions of Data
- Probability
- Calculating Conditional Probability
- Constructing a Probability Distribution
- Sampling Distributions
- Sampling Distributions of the Sample Mean
Economics
- Introduction to Economics (including Micro/Macro Economics)
- Supply, demand and market equilibrium
- Changes in Equilibrium Price and Quantity
- Price Elasticity
- Benefit, Cost and Surplus
Programming and Datacamp
You will be expected to be familiar with the basics of programming. During the first semester, you will have a chance to apply programming skills in VBA and Python.
If you are not already familiar with Python, we suggest that you do Code Academy’s Python class (https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-python) or Google’s Python class (https://developers.google.com/edu/python)
Access to Datacamp will be available at the end of June. We suggest prioritizing completing Datacamp courses from July to August.
Statistics and R
- Introduction to R (free) – how to import data, using data frames, basic data analysis (descriptive statistics for continuous variables, correlations, cross tabulations, frequency tables), graphing
- R Data Management (using package “dplyr”):
- We also recommend the Statistics and R course offered by Harvard University via edX (https://www.edx.org/course/statistics-r-harvardx-ph525-1x). The course is offered for free, but they do try to steer you towards paying for a verified certificate; there’s no need to do that.
Academic Writing
These resources are recommended by the staff at the UBC Sauder Canaccord Learning Commons
Sharpening Your Writing Skills by Duncan Kent
Sharpening Your Writing Skills is an excellent workbook on business writing with exercises and answers, online or as a downloadable PDF.
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Well-known resource, especially for APA research citations as well as a wide range of grammar and writing topics.
David Appleyard English
A comprehensive and easy-to-use website covering numerous grammar topics.
Plagiarism & Citation
1 hour approximate study time. Critical skills for all of your courses – make sure you know how to cite your work, and understand what your responsibilities are with regards to academic integrity.
- Avoiding Plagiarism(UBC Commons resource)
- How to cite(UBC Library resource)
- Getting started with APA Citation Style (UBC Library resource)