Time Schedule:
Daniel F. Jacoby
B CUSP 200
Bothell Campus
Analysis of markets: consumer demand, production, exchange, the price system, resource allocation, government intervention. Recommended: B CUSP 123. Offered: AWSp.
Class description
Student learning goals
Economics is a another way of understanding the world. Students learn how markets work and they affect almost everything we do. You just might never be the same after you've taken it.
To understand when and how human behavior is predictable. Could you have guessed I'd say that?
Yes, its true, economics requires mastery of some important graphing and modeling ideas. Embrace that and you just might find it helps you get into graduate school or secure a job! But, you know, that's not the main point.
We'll dig into that long-running debate about individual freedom vs. the collective good. Economics is part philosophy, part psychology, part history and part politics. Most folks can find a part that interests them.
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
The fewer preconceptions you bring to this course, the better.
Class assignments and grading
The course requires you to learn the concepts that define the economic world, build and manipulate market models using those concepts, and apply those models to new situations.
In consequence it pays not to be too creative in assignments. Mostly you read the text, participate in class, and gain practice through assignments...its a very old school approach, but effective. Occasionally you'll be asked to search out situations in which economic theory applies (curiously, they are everywhere including schooling, the web, and family).
You show me you've mastered class objectives on tests, and I'll put some numbers on your transcript that you can be proud of.
