Academic Preparation
Kellogg Essentials Courses
Introduction

The Kellogg School is pleased to offer a series of Online Pre-Enrollment Courses for incoming students. These courses in mathematics, accounting, microeconomics and statistics were designed by Kellogg faculty. They enable incoming students to get up to speed on certain fundamentals that are important to effectively begin their coursework at Kellogg, regardless of their academic and work experience prior to enrollment.

Incoming students can work through the Online Essentials Courses at their own pace. In addition, the courses will be available to reference at any time during student's coursework at the Kellogg School.

The Online Essentials Courses are designed to help you build or refresh your skills. You should review the material in each course to assess your readiness. There is an outline and glossary for each course, which will be helpful in your review. If you are unfamiliar with the key concepts or if you are not entirely comfortable with the material for a course, you should work through the content of the course. This preparation will significantly ease your transition into the Kellogg Executive MBA curriculum.
  
Curriculum Overview

Math Boot Camp
(Estimated time to complete the courses is 8 to 10 hours)

This course covers key mathematical concepts required for the Kellogg School curriculum and previews where students will see these math concepts applied in core courses. The content emphasizes basic mathematical tools and their application to specific business examples. Topics covered in Math Boot Camp include: probabilistic modeling, expected value, decisions trees, linear equations, regression, present value, and compound interest rates. Please note that the course content contains no review or discussion of calculus.
Online Course Access

Links to access each of the online courses are below.

Please contact your program coordinator with any questions regarding your login

Please disregard the instructions on the login page that say to use your NetID.

Math Boot Camp

Accounting Essentials

Microeconomics Essentials

Statistics Essentials
  
 Support

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For technical support with the online courses, contact Kellogg Information Systems at 847.467.2100 or kis-help@kellogg.northwestern.edu.

Accounting Essentials
(Estimated time to complete the course is 4 to 6 hours)

This course covers key accounting concepts and serves as an introduction for those students who have little or no prior training in accounting. It introduces three major financial reports (balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows), shows the interrelationships among them, and gives you an opportunity to become familiar with key accounting terminology. A learn-by-doing exercise lets you track the financial progress of a start-up company, produce financial statements and get feedback along the way.

Online Accounting Essentials demonstrates two methods for constructing financial reports - the Accounting Equation method and the T Account method. For those who are new to accounting, it may be better to focus initially on the Accounting Equation method, by "clicking through" the T Account material the first time through the course. Once you have an understanding of the basics, then go back and work through the T Account method.

Microeconomics Essentials
(Estimated time to complete the course is 4 to 6 hours)

Microeconomics is the branch of economics that studies how prices are determined in markets and how the structure of markets affects competition and the level of prices. Online Microeconomics Essentials serves as an introduction for students who have little or no prior training in economics, and it gives them the opportunity to become familiar with key microeconomics terminology and concepts.

The strategic challenges faced by Pepsi in its competition with Coke in the soft drink market serve as the backdrop for the course, which covers five key topics in microeconomics: (1) demand and revenue; (2) cost; (3) price and output determination; (4) perfect competition; and (5) game theory. The course uses a combination of tutorial, animation, exercises, and real-world examples to introduce microeconomic concepts in a way that perpares students for the Kellogg Executive MBA core courses in both microeconomics and strategy.

Statistics Essentials
(Estimated time to complete the course is 6 to 8 hours)

This course provides an introduction to some statistical methods and concepts that are particularly useful for management. The course is designed for those who have had no prior exposure to statistics, as well as for those who may have studied statistics but need a refresher. Even those who know some statistics should find the business applications and managerial setting informative.

In the context of problems faced by Café Caliente, a worldwide coffee chain, the course addresses five major topic areas: (1) distributions and describing a variable; (2) estimating with data; (3) hypothesis testing; (4) two population testing; and (5) regression analysis. The course helps prepare students for Kellogg Executive MBA core courses in decisions sciences as well as for the sue of statistics in areas such as finance and marketing.