Online Learning
Real-world Impact
Curriculum
The Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (GDBA) program is crafted to address real-world business challenges through conceptual frameworks. You'll bring issues from your workplace or industry into the virtual classroom, where you'll collaborate with instructors and peers to develop practical solutions. This approach ensures that your learning is directly applicable to your professional context.
The GDBA program is delivered through a flexible online platform that fosters a vibrant and interactive learning environment. Engage actively with instructors and classmates via live and recorded sessions, online study groups, and collaborative projects. This dynamic format helps you build strong connections with a diverse network of students and faculty, enriching your educational experience and professional growth. You're not just studying theory—you're actively applying it and building a network that will support you throughout your career.
All students attend a 14-day orientation before starting classes. This GDBA orientation prepares you to learn in an online, graduate-level business program. It ensures that everyone has the same foundational learning skills and program expectations. You'll learn by doing and completing activities that challenge you intellectually while developing your facility with online tools and methods. During the orientation, you will also:
- Meet instructors and classmates
- Learn to use the online learning tools and access university resources
- Complete learning activities using the online Learning Management System
- Develop a personal study plan that aligns with your career goals and MBA aspirations
Start the GDBA program in January, May or September.
We schedule lectures, exams, and assignments to accommodate individuals working Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PT. You may need to make occasional adjustments if you fall outside this time zone or schedule.
We move through the modules at the same rate, meeting the same dates for individual and team assignments. That keeps you on track and engaged with the coursework. Instructors deliver each course online in weekly or bi-weekly modules. During that time, you are free to study whenever it suits you. Expect to spend 8 to 10 hours per week on each course (a full course load is two courses per semester). Each course in the program ends with a final exam/paper.
Most GDBA students complete the program in two years. However, you can study at your own pace, adjusting your academic plan to accommodate your changing life and career.
MBA-level courses and instruction
All GDBA courses are equivalent to courses taught in our MBA programs, and our MBA professors teach most GDBA courses. That makes the GDBA a valuable program and qualification in its own right.
- Attend GDBA orientation, a 14-day online orientation, before classes begin.
- Complete the GDBA in 24 months (six semesters) by taking one course per semester while working full-time—or take more or less time.
- Each course is delivered online in weekly or bi-weekly modules.
- Each course typically involves 8-10 hours per week.
- Each course in the program ends with a final exam/paper.
To level up your leadership skills, participate in a carefully curated set of courses to introduce you to leadership and teamwork fundamentals and the case analysis process.
Managing People & Organizations
Understand how individuals and teams function effectively in work situations. Learn how organizational behaviour themes, such as emotions, motivation, and group dynamics, relate to functional issues such as job design, salary structures, and recruitment.
Financial & Managerial Accounting
Move beyond accounting fundamentals and processes. Learn to make business decisions based on sound financial information analysis to support broader organizational objectives.
Business Ethics (half course)
Professional decision-making involves moving from complexity and ambiguity to action. Build an integrated set of ethical and analytical reasoning tools for addressing the challenges that arise in real-world decisions.
Managerial Economics
Gain an introduction to the basic concepts of economics and explore the relevance of economic reasoning to tactical and strategic managerial decision-making. Study the importance of economic concepts, economic models and quantitative applications, and understand how they apply to common problems managers encounter.
Managerial Finance (Prerequisite: Financial/Managerial Accounting)
Gain a practical understanding of managerial finance and the role of the financial manager. Learn to apply financial statement analysis, valuation techniques, capital budgeting, project analysis, and other financial tools. Explore a wide variety of subjects, including:
- Maximizing shareholder wealth
- Agency conflicts
- Ethical corporate behaviour
Business Analytics
Explore the fundamental concepts of probability and statistics that provide the essential tools to approach statistics critically. Focus on using quantitative or statistical techniques in managerial decision-making and learn to apply them in business settings.
Marketing Management
Get an overview of the marketing process, including learning to analyze data and make decisions on pricing, product design, promotion and distribution as part of developing a comprehensive marketing plan. The course concludes with a collaborative online marketing simulation.
Content for these courses changes each semester. Currently offered topic:
Business & Indigenous Peoples
This course helps students understand the issues involved when companies operate or intend to operate in the traditional territories of First Nations and other Indigenous peoples. It examines the role that Indigenous people play in Canada's economy, including entrepreneurship and community-owned businesses.
MBA Transferable Course Credits
Want to work toward our MBA program? These courses will help get you there.
GDBA courses are transferable to any of our MBA programs for up to three years after completion. Students must achieve a grade of at least 3.0 GPA (B) for the course to be transferred to the MBA.
Students proceeding to one of the MBA programs should be aware that not all courses may be waived. In particular, University policy specifies that no more than 50% of a program's credit requirements may be waived.
*Students must achieve a grade of at least 3.0 GPA (B) for the course to be transferable and subject to successful admission to an MBA program.
**GDBA courses are valid to be eligible to transfer to an MBA program for up to 3 years after completion.
*** Students who complete two of the following three courses, Financial & Managerial Accounting, Managerial Finance, or Business Analytics, may ladder to an MBA with a GMAT waiver if required.
Courses required to apply to ladder into the MBA program: 3.5 courses.
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Apply to the GDBA Program
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Upcoming Event
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
12:00pm - 01:00pm
Online/Zoom
Have Questions?
Please contact us.
Email: gdba@sfu.ca
Connect with our team
If you have any questions during the application process or cannot apply online, please contact the GDBA office at gdba@sfu.ca or get in touch with your GDBA Advisor.