UMGC study guides, course by course
UMGC runs accelerated 8-week online sessions built for working adults and military students — a large share of classmates are active-duty, veterans, or full-time workers fitting coursework around shifts and deployments. Most courses skip proctored exams in favor of weekly discussions, projects, and papers, which means consistent weekly output matters more than test-day performance.
UMGC courses pair a four-letter subject prefix with a three-digit number — CMIS 102, STAT 200, WRTG 112. 100- and 200-level courses are lower division; 300- and 400-level are upper division.
Fennie is independent and not affiliated with University of Maryland Global Campus.
Use Fennie at UMGCComputer Science
CMIS 102 — Introduction to Problem Solving and Algorithm Design
CMIS 102 is UMGC's entry point to programming, teaching problem decomposition, algorithm design, and basic coding in Python. It's the prerequisite gateway for the computer science and software development paths, and weekly work centers on small programming exercises that build from sequential logic to functions and loops.
CMIS 111 — Social Networking and Cybersecurity Best Practices
CMIS 111 is a hands-on survey of social networking platforms and personal cybersecurity — how to use professional and personal networks while protecting yourself from common attacks. It's a popular general-education technology elective with projects built around real accounts and security tools rather than exams.
CMSC 115 — Introductory Programming
CMSC 115 is the first programming course in UMGC's computer science major, teaching Java fundamentals — variables, control flow, methods, and arrays — through hands-on projects with professional tools. It's the gateway to the CMSC sequence and moves at a brisker, more engineering-minded pace than the CMIS introductory track.
CMIS 242 — Intermediate Programming
CMIS 242 is UMGC's object-oriented Java course: classes, inheritance, polymorphism, exceptions, generics, and graphical interfaces, assessed through weekly programming projects. It follows the introductory Java course and is where programs stop being scripts and start being designed.
CMIS 320 — Relational Database Concepts
CMIS 320 covers relational database theory and practice: the relational model, entity-relationship modeling, normalization, and SQL. Projects walk you from a business scenario to a normalized design to an implemented, queried database — the full design-to-SQL arc in one 8-week session.
Information Technology
CMIT 265 — Fundamentals of Networking
CMIT 265 covers networking fundamentals — the OSI model, IP addressing, routing, switching, and wireless — and is deliberately aligned with the CompTIA Network+ certification objectives. It's a core course for UMGC's networking and cybersecurity programs and a common first technical course for military students leveraging IT experience.
CMIT 320 — Fundamentals of Cybersecurity
CMIT 320 is UMGC's core security course, aligned with CompTIA Security+ objectives: threats and vulnerabilities, cryptography basics, identity and access management, and network security design. Assessment leans on scenario-based projects, including security assessment and network-hardening proposals, rather than a proctored final.
CMIT 202 — Fundamentals of Computer Troubleshooting
CMIT 202 is UMGC's hardware and operating-systems course, built to prepare you for the CompTIA A+ certification exams. The work runs through lab simulations covering installation, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting, with practice certification exams and applied projects like a desktop migration proposal.
CMIT 326 — Cloud Technologies
CMIT 326 introduces cloud computing with a heavy AWS focus: core services, architecture, security, and pricing models, aligned with AWS certification objectives. Hands-on labs have you working in actual AWS environments, and the course is a centerpiece of UMGC's cloud-track programs.
Information Systems Management
IFSM 201 — Concepts and Applications of Information Technology
IFSM 201 is UMGC's digital-fluency general-education course, covering computing concepts, data, security awareness, and the ethical and societal side of IT, with hands-on work in spreadsheets. Nearly every UMGC undergraduate passes through it or an equivalent early in their program.
IFSM 300 — Information Systems in Organizations
IFSM 300 examines how organizations use information systems for strategy and operations, built around a running business case study. You produce staged written deliverables — analyzing the business strategy, identifying process improvements, and recommending an IT solution — that build on each other across the session.
IFSM 304 — Ethics in the Information Age
IFSM 304 examines the ethical issues technology creates — privacy, intellectual property, security, and professional conduct — and teaches structured ethical-analysis frameworks for working through them. Assessment is paper-based: case analyses applying the frameworks to realistic IT scenarios.
Writing
WRTG 111 — Academic Writing I
WRTG 111 is the first course in UMGC's writing sequence, rebuilding academic writing fundamentals — paragraph and essay structure, thesis development, and revision — for students who may be returning to school after years away. Work is scaffolded: short pieces grow into essays through drafts and instructor feedback.
WRTG 112 — Academic Writing II
WRTG 112 is UMGC's research-writing course: you develop a research question, evaluate sources, and produce an academic research essay through staged milestones across the session. It satisfies the core writing requirement for most UMGC degrees and is one of the most-taken courses at the university.
WRTG 393 — Advanced Technical Writing
WRTG 393 is UMGC's workplace-writing course and a common upper-level writing requirement: instructions, technical descriptions, reports, and proposals, all written for defined audiences and purposes. Most assignments mirror documents you'd actually produce on the job, and many students build them around their own workplace.
Mathematics & Statistics
STAT 200 — Introduction to Statistics
STAT 200 is UMGC's introductory statistics course, required across business, IT, and social science degrees: descriptive statistics, probability, distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and regression. Weekly homework sets and quizzes carry the grade, and many sections add a data-analysis project.
MATH 107 — College Algebra
MATH 107 is UMGC's college algebra course: functions and graphs, linear and quadratic equations, polynomials, exponentials, and logarithms. It satisfies the math general-education requirement for many degrees and is the prerequisite stepping stone toward statistics and technical math.
MATH 140 — Calculus I
MATH 140 is UMGC's first calculus course: limits, continuity, derivatives and their applications, and an introduction to integration through the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. It serves the computer science and technical degree paths and assumes solid precalculus going in.
Business & Management
BMGT 110 — Introduction to Business and Management
BMGT 110 surveys the business landscape — management, marketing, finance, operations, and entrepreneurship — as the entry course for UMGC's business programs. It's designed for students without business backgrounds and assessed through weekly discussions, quizzes, and applied written assignments.
BMGT 364 — Management and Organization Theory
BMGT 364 is the core management course in UMGC's business degree, covering the management functions — planning, organizing, leading, and controlling — plus organizational theory, culture, and change. Assessment runs through written projects applying the frameworks to real or case organizations.
BMGT 365 — Organizational Leadership
BMGT 365 focuses on leadership in organizations: major leadership theories, emotional intelligence, team dynamics, and leading change. It typically follows BMGT 364 in the management major, assessed through written projects analyzing leaders and leadership situations against the course frameworks.
Accounting
ACCT 220 — Principles of Accounting I
ACCT 220 is UMGC's financial accounting course: the accounting cycle, journal entries, financial statements, and accounting for assets and liabilities. It's required for accounting, business, and finance majors and is the first course in the program with genuinely cumulative, skill-based content.
ACCT 221 — Principles of Accounting II
ACCT 221 is UMGC's managerial accounting course, following ACCT 220: job-order and process costing, cost-volume-profit analysis, budgeting, variance analysis, and decision-making with cost data. It completes the accounting pair required across the business degrees.
Economics
ECON 201 — Principles of Macroeconomics
ECON 201 covers the economy in aggregate: GDP, unemployment, inflation, the business cycle, and fiscal and monetary policy. It's a core requirement for UMGC business majors and a popular social-science gen-ed, taught through weekly discussions, problem sets, and quizzes.
ECON 203 — Principles of Microeconomics
ECON 203 covers how individual markets work: supply and demand, elasticity, consumer and producer behavior, costs, and market structures from perfect competition to monopoly. It pairs with ECON 201 in UMGC's business core and doubles as a social-science gen-ed.
Psychology
Communication Studies
Natural Sciences
History
Studying at UMGC?
Upload your course materials and Fennie generates Daily Plans paced to your deadlines — plus chat, flashcards, and quizzes built from your own courses.
Get started free