UMD Business Four-Year Plan: Smith School Course Sequence

The Robert H. Smith School of Business requires both breadth across business disciplines and depth in a declared concentration. The Smith Core is a fixed sequence of foundational courses that every student takes before upper-division work, and several courses in that core are prerequisites for the courses that determine your concentration. Getting behind on the core is the most common planning mistake at Smith: students who defer BMGT 210 or BMGT 220 by a semester often find themselves as juniors without access to the finance or accounting upper-division sequence they need. Here is the sequence that keeps you on track.

Year 1: Smith Core foundation (~30 credits)

Start fall with BMGT 110 (Business and Society in a Global Environment), MATH 140 (Calculus I), and ENGL 101 for the FSAW requirement. BMGT 110 is the foundational Smith course and introduces the business school culture, case method thinking, and cross-functional context. It is also where you start building your cohort relationships; Smith is heavily team-based and the students in your BMGT 110 section are often the same students you will be grouped with in upper-division courses.

In spring of Year 1, take BMGT 210 (Principles of Accounting and Financial Reporting). This is one of the most important prerequisites in the entire Smith sequence. BMGT 210 is required before BMGT 310/311 (Intermediate Accounting), BMGT 220 (Finance), and several other core courses. Do not defer it. Students who push BMGT 210 to fall of Year 2 are one semester behind on the finance and accounting concentration tracks before they have even declared. Add a Social Science Gen Ed (PSYC 100 satisfies FSOC and is reliably available) and a free elective to round out spring.

Year 2: Core breadth and concentration declaration (~30 credits)

Fall of Year 2 is the Smith Core breadth semester: BMGT 220 (Finance), BMGT 230 (Operations Management), and STAT 100 (Elementary Statistics and Probability) or STAT 400. BMGT 220 covers time value of money, capital budgeting, and basic financial analysis. It is the prerequisite for all upper-division finance courses (BMGT 420, 422, 423), so it must come before Year 3. STAT 100 satisfies the statistics requirement for most Smith concentrations; STAT 400 is better if you are interested in quantitative finance or business analytics.

In spring of Year 2, take BMGT 340 (Marketing Management) and BMGT 380 (Business Law and Government Regulation). BMGT 340 is one of the most popular Smith courses and fills within hours of registration opening, so put your CRN in the moment your window opens. By the end of spring, you should declare your concentration. Smith’s primary concentrations include Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Supply Chain Management, and Information Systems. Declaring late does not lock you out of upper-division courses. It does mean your advisor cannot give you concentration-specific sequencing guidance until you commit.

Year 3: Upper-division concentration depth (~31 credits)

Year 3 is where your path diverges by concentration. Finance students take BMGT 420 (Corporate Finance), BMGT 422 (Investments), and BMGT 423 (Financial Modeling). Each one building on BMGT 220 and, for 422 and 423, on 420 itself. These three form a sequential chain; plan them in order across fall and spring of Year 3.

Accounting students take BMGT 310 (Intermediate Accounting I) and BMGT 311 (Intermediate Accounting II) as a required two-semester sequence, followed by BMGT 321 (Cost Accounting) and BMGT 361 (Federal Tax Accounting). The 310/311 sequence requires BMGT 210. Start 310 no later than spring of Year 2 or fall of Year 3; pushing it later compresses the remaining accounting sequence into your final year.

Marketing students build around BMGT 441 (Consumer Behavior), BMGT 442 (Marketing Research and Information Systems), and BMGT 443 (Advertising Management). All three are more analytically demanding than BMGT 340 suggests, with quantitative research components. Year 3 fall is also peak internship recruiting season. Keep your registered credit hours in the 15–16 range so you have time to interview without it affecting coursework.

Year 4: Capstone and finishing requirements (~29 credits)

BMGT 495 (Strategic Management) is the Smith School capstone, and it requires senior standing and most of the Smith Core completed. It is a case-heavy, team-intensive course that integrates everything from BMGT 220, 230, 340, and 380 into business strategy analysis. You should register for it in the fall of Year 4 at the latest. Some students take it in spring of Year 4 as their final semester course, which works fine if your remaining requirements are otherwise complete by then.

Fall of Year 4 should include your final concentration electives and any remaining required business courses. Spring of Year 4 is typically lighter: finish free electives, any remaining Gen Ed categories (DVCC and DVUP are the ones most Smith students have not finished by this point), and any remaining open elective credits to reach 120. Before your final semester, run your Orbit degree audit against uAchieve and verify that your concentration checklist, Gen Ed tracker, and total credit count all align. Smith concentration audits occasionally lag because of incomplete petitions or transfer credits that were not fully processed. Catching a gap in October leaves time to fix it.