Here are some courses the campus offers that can help explore your options regarding entrepreneurship.
This course explores the impact of business upon our culture and the role of business in modern society. Of special interest are the growth and development of capitalism and business thought, the influence of the corporation, and the role of management in society. Case materials are utilized extensively.
This course will introduce students to sociological perspectives on marketing and examine patterns of consumer behavior. We will analyze how consumers are influenced to buy and societal consequences of contemporary large-scale patterns of consumerism.
This course is designed to give students a better understanding of today’s organizational world through the lens of organizational theory. Topics include the rise and nature of bureaucracy, the evolution of managerial ideologies, theories of leadership and decision making, organizational culture, technological and ideological determinism, and the influence of the environment. Theory is related to practice through the examination of specific case studies.
CE 204 integrates sustainable design, user-centered research, and economic strategy. Students will assess environmental impact, recyclability, and durability, while focusing on user needs through research and usability testing. The course also covers project management, including cost calculation and budget planning, as students collaborate on real-world engineering challenges. CE 204 provides hands-on experience, blending sustainability, user research, and financial planning to prepare students for impactful design work.
This course serially examines the major sectors of the global economy using the tools of economic theory. For each sector, students analyze current market conditions and trends, financial performance, critical challenges, and relevant public policies.
Analysis and practical application of corporate financial data as it relates to managerial decision making. Particular emphasis is placed on the corporate investment and financing decision, risk management, and the dividend.
This course is an introduction to Flow of Funds analysis and interest rate determination in the money and capital markets, the structure of interest rates, efficient market hypothesis, and major financial institutions in the United States.
This course integrates microeconomic theory with economic application techniques in an investigation of various market structures, strategic firm interaction, antitrust issues, and economic regulation. Beginning with the standard Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm and proceeding through some of the most recently developed theories in noncooperative games, the course content exposes students to an array of methods that facilitate the analysis of market structures, antitrust, and regulatory issues.
This seminar explores business entrepreneurship as foundational in an economy’s transformation, growth and development. Its analytical underlay is that entrepreneurship, whether redistributive or productive, converts ideas into economic opportunities, “assetizing” and commoditizing their intellectual properties and property rights into economic prices and tradable values through market exchange, which in turn drives and guides innovation and change and flexibility and dynamism in an economy. The focus will be on the institutional framework, environment, and analytical processes that enable business entrepreneurship.
We explore many questions that firms investigate about existing and potential markets, including: How to price and promote their products? What new products should be introduced? Should the firm make or buy inputs? Retail directly or through franchisees? Drawing on price theory and strategic marketing, we use graphical and mathematical modeling techniques along with case study methods to explore the techniques and economic efficiency of marketing decisions and customer relationships in diverse and evolving markets.
This is a historical study of engineering and society. It examines the ways cultural influences have shaped the extent and direction of technological development in the past while showing how students, as aspiring engineers, can gain access to those factors for the future. The class focuses on global and multi-cultural settings. To achieve its goals, it brings together non-technical elements of engineering design with technical details about operational aspects of technological systems. [GM2]
Many of the great technology products and services that we take for granted today were brought to the market by entrepreneurs instead of large companies. These products and services may have been invented and perfected by engineers, but without knowledge of markets, sales, finance, strategic planning, and presentation skills, even the most remarkable technologies will remain ideas rather than products. This course will provide the engineering student with a broad survey of entrepreneurship principles required to create and evaluate new technology potential and help students move these new ideas towards commercialization.
This course teaches the fundamentals of engineering design methodology. Students will use engineering design processes to aid them in: recognizing the need for an engineering solution, defining constraints, specifying requirements, and modeling an engineering solution, among other aspects of engineering design. Instructors integrate societal contexts of engineering practice into the projects and examine the implications of engineering solutions.
This course examines both the political goods that are associated with capitalism (freedom, democracy, etc.)-and challengers (classic and contemporary) who argue that this economic form has rather more problematic social effects. We will read texts that address a wide range of questions, ranging from poverty, to capitalist labor markets, to the marketization of greater domains of life (e.g. bodily organs, water, education), to the impact of market values on democratic practice. [SS, V, W]
Course topics include a range of business models: not-for-profit groups, organizations with revenue-generating products or services in pursuit of a social goal, and socially responsible for-profit companies. Students will learn from examples that include locally-based efforts, organizations that operate around the U.S., and examples from abroad. They will also be part of a team that designs and develops strategies for a particular societal issue relevant to a community partner.
Examines the commercialization of new life science technologies and discusses the roles of intellectual property, governmental policies, marketplace economics, and ethical debates in the process.
Real-world investment situations to provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to understand the integral components of real estate investment.
This course will provide a survey of intellectual property law for a technical (non-legal) audience, with a primary focus on patent law. The purpose of the course is to assist engineers and scientists in navigating and utilizing various intellectual property regimes effectively in the business context. In the patent realm, topics will include patent preparation and prosecution, patent claim interpretation, and assessing patent validity and infringement. Other intellectual property areas covered include copyright, trademark, and trade secret law. [V, W]
Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes in organizations, especially work organizations. Course topics include the historical development of I-O psychology, relevant research methods and statistics, the impact of legal and judicial decisions, job analysis and evaluation, employee selection, performance appraisal, training and development, organizational socialization, motivation, job satisfaction and employee attitudes, organizational stress, leadership, power and politics, group processes, and organizational theory, culture, structure, and change.