This course is designed to introduce students to a broad overview of personal and family financial planning, with specific emphasis the financial planning process, financial strategies, savings and cash flow management, insurance, investments, taxes, use of credit, and time value of money.
This course is designed to introduce students to challenges and opportunities associated with managing money. The course will cover key personal finance topics and money management strategies relevant for college students in the early stages of their financial journey. This course will approach money topics from a personal point-of-view and students can expect to gain objective financial knowledge as well as insight into their own individual approaches to money. By the end of the semester, students will have a clear understanding of how they can set and achieve financial goals.
This course describes the prominent characteristics of consumption behavior, societal change that has influenced consumer-driven societies and pressures for change in the future. The course will examine the important economic variables that, on the one hand, have led to a rapidly growing worldwide consumer demand for goods and services and, on the other hand, have resulted in increased debt, overspending and an inability to achieve long term personal financial goals. An objective analysis of both personal and global consumption habits will provide the transition into sustainable strategies to increase personal financial solvency. The course will not provide you with the answers to achieving your personal financial goals, but rather will examine our consumer society and expose you to the major reasons why people spend and save. The aim of the course is to provide you with sufficient information to make judgments for yourself about your consumption patterns and long-term financial health.
An honors thesis is required of all the students graduating with honors. Students ordinarily sign up for this course as a two-semester sequence. The first semester the student performs research under the supervision of a faculty member; the second semester the student writes an honors thesis.
A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.
Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of training and practice in actual service in a technical, business, or governmental establishment.
Design and conduct research projects as part of a research team. Gain applied experience in essential components of research work, including for example the theoretical basis of research work, identifying suitable research methods, conducting literature and data base reviews, devising sampling techniques, applying survey or experimental research techniques, transcribing and coding qualitative data, coding quantitative data, data management and basic analysis, developing and presenting research reports, among other activities.
Specialized work on an individual basis, consisting of instruction and practice in actual service in a department, program, or discipline. Teaching formats may include seminars, in-depth studies, laboratory work and patient study.
Explore leadership and management concepts and practices that lead to more effective, ethical and socially-responsible organizations. Build your professional leadership capabilities in organizational planning, business decision making, negotiation and influence, teamwork, employee motivation and training, organizational goal setting, and business communications. Develop skills for managing the challenges and opportunities of diversity and cultural differences within organizations and the global marketplace. Evaluate and reflect on your career path and career development.
Examine consumer behavior in the context of global environmental and social challenges. Sustainability requires a critical shift in consumers' mindset to effectively respond to these challenges. We will discuss adaptation and mitigation strategies for consumers with special emphasis on overconsumption as the main driver of climate change, the reduction of individual and collective ecological footprints, the boundaries in effectively adapting materialist lifestyles, and the intersection of economic, ecological and social inequity. The course provides an introduction into environmental and social sustainability, including the science, theoretical concepts, and practical approaches used to analyze and reduce negative impacts of consumer behavior.