QTM3615 Time Series and Forecasting
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis course is about the analysis of time series data in the context of various real-life forecasting situations pertaining to business and non-business areas, such as sales, banking, healthcare, sports, and global warming. The objectives of the course are: to provide practical experience with time series data to predict future outcomes; to provide a framework for comparing alternative models in terms of predictive accuracy; to cultivate an appreciation of various types of times series modeling approaches; to provide advanced exposure and experience in programming to build, test, and apply time series models; and to develop skills at communicating results effectively. The software used throughout the course will be Excel and R/RStudio. Effective teamwork and professional presentation of analyses and recommendations will be required during this course.

Prerequisites: AQM2000 or QTM2000 or permission from instructor

SCN3601: Triumphs and Trials of the Pharmaceutical Industry

4 advanced liberal arts credits

In 2022, the US pharmaceutical market was valued at over $1.2 trillion, forecasted to reach more than $2 trillion dollars by the year 2025. Bringing a new drug or therapeutic agent to the market is a complex process that can take upwards of a decade with a hefty price tag upwards of $2 billion dollars. The United States pharma industry spends about $60 billion yearly on drug research and development, generating approximately half of the $1.2 trillion market. As a result of this significant investment, the pharma industry has made great strides in the treatment of many diseases and developed therapies that have changed the world, including the development of antibiotics to treat infection and drugs like insulin, which have saved hundreds of thousands of lives Research, technological advances and development have led to new and innovative approaches to treat cancer, has reduced HIV infection from a 100% mortality rate to a chronic illness in the US and led to the development of a vaccine against COVID19 in record time. Despite making many significant scientific strides, public opinion of the industry is lower than ever before. It has been plagued with controversy after controversy about questionable practices including intellectual property arguments, skyrocketing costs, exorbitant executive payouts and inequitable vaccine access across the world. Additionally, a seemingly arbitrary drug pricing system and the indisputable role the pharma industry played in the opioid crisis, have fed into the significant public relations problem the industry currently faces. This course will focus on real world considerations that drive both the good and the bad of the pharmaceutical industry. We will discuss the triumphs and challenges that occur in bringing a drug from bench to bedside, and explore some of the questionable practices that have been connected to the industry. We will discuss the process and impacts of new drug development, translational medicine, and drug pricing models, investigating the ethics of balancing patient access, scientific innovation and the sustainability of a complex and often inefficient system. By the end of this course, students will appreciate the complexity of drug development system and understand the critical scientific and ethical challenges the pharmaceutical industry faces in bringing a drug to market.

Prerequisites: Any NST1XXX course

OIM3650: UI/UX Design for Web and App Development
4 advanced liberal arts credits

Are you an aspiring designer? Are you interested in more coding and development skills? Do you want to know how to make better decisions with your website, mobile apps, and more? OIM3650 takes a deep dive into user interface design for web-based projects, apps and sites. In this hands-on 14 week course, students will learn the key aspects of what makes a solid and usable interface on a desktop, tablet, and mobile device. Over the course of the semester, students will create a web-based or mobile project and continually iterate the design and interface based on feedback from fellow classmates, the professor, and self-feedback utilizing leading-edge user experience techniques and tools. This course will explore advanced techniques in cascading style sheets (CSS), as well as leverage JavaScript frameworks and libraries such as Bootstrap. As part of the course, students will learn about the principles of design, how these principles relate to solid interface design, the importance of the UI as it relates to generating and maintaining your business, and key differences between User Interface Design and User Experience (UX). The course will also introduce the concepts and tools used to make working prototypes and wireframes, including the Adobe Creative Suite, in particular Photoshop and Adobe XD. This course will underscore the importance of UI for all types of web-based projects, looking at theory as well as taking a hands-on approach. It is designed for those who are interested in how the choices you make as a designer can impact your business as well as those who are interested in taking web-based projects to the next level.

For more information about this course, please review this video: https://babson.instructuremedia.com/embed/b8eebad7-34b3-40fb-8968-435917022326

Prerequisite: OIM3690 or experience in HTML and CSS

OIM3635 UI/UX Design for Web and App Development
(Formerly MIS3635 User Interface Design)
2 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

**Student who took this as MIS3635 cannot register for this course**

OIM3635 takes a deep dive into user interface design for web-based projects, apps and sites. Students will learn the key aspects of what makes a solid and usable interface on the desktop, a tablet and a mobile device. This course will explore advanced techniques in cascading style sheets (CSS), as well as leverage JavaScript libraries such as jQuery. As part of the course, students will learn about the principles of design, how they relate to solid interface design, and the importance of the UI as it relates to generating and maintaining your business. The course will also introduce the concepts and tools to make working prototypes and wireframes using tools like Balsamiq and Lucidchart. This course will underscore the importance of UI for all types of web-based projects, looking at theory as well as taking a hands-on approach. It is designed for those that are interested in taking web-based projects to the next level as well as those that are interested in how the choices you make as a designer can affect your business.

Prerequisites: MIS3690 or MIS3640

POL4604 Understanding Political Risk
(Formerly Managing Political Risk in an Uncertain World)
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis course will provide a framework of concepts and perspectives for managing political risk in an increasingly global economic environment. Issues covered include, at the international level, geopolitics, trade policies, alliances and conflicts, and, at the national level, civil conflict, regime change, and underlying sources of instability such as inequality and terrorism, as well as diverse fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies affecting property rights, industry structures, labor markets, environmental strategies, and other critical areas for business leaders. The nature of these issues and how they are addressed vary over time and across countries. This diversity of responses is shaped by history, culture, geography, and politics. This course will cover general themes, theories and approaches, while providing current analyses and insights on select issues, regions, and/or countries. Students will also have the opportunity in individual and team assignments to focus on specific issues, regions, and/or countries of their choosing, with the responsibility to share their findings with the class through discussion and presentations.

Prerequisites: 3 Intermediate liberal arts courses (CVA, LVA, HSS, CSP, LTA in any combination)

SUS3601 Unintended Consequences: At the Interface of Business and the Environment
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThe consequences of business decisions often have impacts far different from those that were initially anticipated. Increasingly business leaders, particularly entrepreneurs, are expected to be able to anticipate the consequences of such decisions on the social and natural environment. "Systems thinking" offers a useful framework for dealing with such complex challenges. Likewise, such consequences demand an interdisciplinary approach to their study. The focus of this course will be on building competency in the use of systems thinking in regard to the interface of business and the environment through in-depth and interdisciplinary, historical and contemporary case studies such as "boom and bust" in the industrial revolution of the United States, declining fisheries, the use of hydraulic fracturing to extract fossil fuels, carbon sequestration, damming of rivers and the growing impact of electrical vehicles. We will also examine efforts to mitigate the impact of business decisions on the environment and the political, economic and policy challenges such efforts present. SUS3601 will use a variety of learning methods throughout the course including historical resources, multi-media immersion, field projects and "flipping the classroom." We hope to help students address such questions as:

- How can business leaders productively consider the long-term implications of their actions for a variety of stakeholders and what is their responsibility for doing so under unpredictable circumstances?
- How can the perspectives of science and social justice inform business leaders' understanding of the long-term implications of their actions?
- What role can/should business leaders play in the remediation of societal and environmental degradation?

Prerequisites: (FME1000 and FME1001) or (MOB1000 and MOB1010) and NST1

HSS2030 US Politics
(Formerly American Politics)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe course begins with a focus on significant ideas, major political and economic institutions, and key social conflicts and events that have shaped the character of American politics. We will position American politics in its historical context, recognizing and contending with the legacies of enslavement, white supremacy, and imperial violence in its development. As such, the fundamental role of race, colonialism, gender, sexuality, and class will be addressed throughout so that we can understand key and persistent features of American politics. The latter half of the course will examine contemporary ideologies, struggles over civil liberties and rights, the forces generating economic inequality, and the origins of mass incarceration and systemic racism. We will also spend the beginning of classes discussing the news, so the class will be flexible enough to respond to and address political events as they occur. The course will involve a combination of lecturing, discussion, and small-group activities, so class participation is important.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

ECN3606 Uses and Abuses of Financial Derivatives: An Economist's View

4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

The significant use of derivative instruments began in the 1970s and, since then, has grown at a thunderous rate. Derivatives are used by individuals, businesses, financial institutions, central banks, and governments throughout the world. This course explains financial derivatives from microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives.

Microeconomic Perspective
The wise use of derivative instruments requires the identification, measurement, evaluation, management, and monitoring of major risks. Some risks are willingly held, but many of are not, and derivative instruments provides a way to transfer these risks to others. Uses and Abuses of Financial Derivatives: An Economist's View explains how companies have used derivative contracts to mitigate risks. It also describes how these instruments can be used for speculative, often destructive, purposes, which have little or nothing to do with a well-conceived strategy. In some cases, actions that were intended to hedge positions ended up being speculative, due (usually) to unpriced risks and a lack of understanding.

In the spirit of "Never waste a good crisis," this course explains the steps and missteps of companies connected to some of the most spectacular derivative disasters, such as Amaranth Advisors LLC, American International Group (AIG), JPMorgan Chase ("London Whale"), Metallgesellschaft AG, Orange County, and Proctor & Gamble Inc. In doing so, the course addresses important questions, such as: What risks did these companies fail to identify or incorrectly price? Could these losses have been prevented?

The chances are high that students in this class will be offered employee stock options sometime in their professional careers, so this course explains how to put stock option offers into the broader perspective of different forms of compensation and their risks. We will find that employers (especially those in start-up companies) often look at ESOs quite differently from employees.

Macroeconomic Perspective
Derivative products have been used by central banks to influence exchange rates and by governments to hedge international borrowing and lending costs. This course explains how central banks hedge themselves and the positive and negative impacts these transactions can have on international capital flows, domestic credit markets, and foreign exchange markets.

Uses and Abuses of Financial Derivatives: An Economist's View also connects you to an ongoing debate about whether financial derivatives can have significant negative effects on national and world economies. On one side are those who believe derivatives are zero-sum games, with the losses of some offset by the gains of others. On the other side are those who believe that derivative instruments can negatively influence nations' monetary and fiscal policies and expectations, thereby precipitating national and international economic and financial crises. This course discusses both sides of this debate, with particular focus the currency crises of Mexico (1994), Thailand (1997 - 1998), Russia (1998), and Argentina (2001).

Engaging in a forward contract means agreeing to pay or receive payment in the future at a price agreed upon today, but how can one know if a forward price is "fair." To address this question, we discuss four "parity conditions," which are at the heart of many macroeconomic discussions - particularly those dealing with derivatives.

Prerequisites: ECN2000 or ECN2002

LTA2069 Utopia and Dystopia: Literary and Cultural Expressions
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course will examine the difference between ideas of absolute societal perfection and absolute societal imperfection as expressed in literary and cultural texts. Topics of study through such texts will include the ways we govern, the ways we create order, the ways we progress, and the ways we treat others. Over the course of the semester, students will be confronted with a number of questions. What are the elements of a utopia or dystopia? If one is complete perfection and the other complete imperfection - both by definition unattainable - then why are the concepts even worth talking about, and why have they persisted throughout history and across cultures? And maybe most interestingly, is there much of a real difference between the two? We will read works by Jose Saramago, Cormac McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ursula LeGuin, and Margaret Atwood.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)