CSP2055 Peoples and Cultures of the Americas

(Formerly CVA2055)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits

This course looks at the Peoples and Cultures and Cultures of Latin America from within. The course covers topics such as resistance movements against dictatorships, feminist movements, Indigenous and environmental movements, racial and social justice movements. These issues are presented from the perspective of those on the ground, actively engaged with pushing for social movements that shape these countries.

What do we need to pay attention to when we are trying to understand Latin America? What are the forces that shape the region? These very complex questions should not be reduced to simple answers. However, the dynamics in Latin American countries (as well as elsewhere) are in large part a result of contentious processes between those that are trying to control the state and those trying to change it. The mainstream narrative about the history and politics of Latin America explains the region from the perspective of those who have access to the means of power, and have more leverage on how national states are governed. This is, though, only part of what we need to keep in mind. It is crucial to inquire into the movements that push against these dominant forces and narratives. This course invites students to investigate the social processes carried out by those who are often forgotten. Although frequently ignored, the consequences of these dynamics are constitutive of Latin America. This is an intermediate course designed to provide business students with the necessary tools to understand and engage with peoples and cultures of the region.

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

CSP2035 Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East

(Formerly CVA2035)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhile the Middle East continues to dominate Western foreign policy concerns and is a focus of Western media, understanding of this region is often based on stereotypes that do not consider the everyday lives of Middle Eastern people, and that do not attempt to differentiate between peoples of this region. This course will introduce several groups and cultures of the Middle East in detail, while focusing on thematic topics that are of particular interest to current world events. A brief survey of the history and geography of the region will be followed by more in-depth study of topics such as political Islam, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, the war in Afghanistan, gender and sexuality, and human rights issues. The course will be highly interactive, and will make frequent use of documentaries, movies, literature, and current news events as well as anthropological and ethnographic material.

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

LIT4610 Performing Social Class
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis 4-credit course employs gamified pedagogy to explore the multifarious ways that social class functions. Students will read texts that explore the issues of class consciousness, class performance, classism, and cross-class communication; act in in-class simulations of events that reveal the ways that social class operates; and write character biographies, scripts and analytical reflections. Simulations will include school events, job interviews, holiday celebrations, and more. Readings will be drawn from both nonfiction (from fields such as sociology, economics and cultural studies) and fiction (primarily short stories and excerpts from novels and plays). The overarching objective will be for students to become aware of the often-invisible ways that social class operates in daily life. In a global society that is marked by increasing socioeconomic disparity, it is especially important for students to become critical thinkers about social class.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

FIN2520 Personal Finance
4 General CreditsThis course teaches students to negotiate the retail financial landscape, emphasizing issues that have a large impact on their future financial well-being. It assumes no financial knowledge other than first-year finance. The course covers topics such as understanding and appreciating the time value of money, the financial planning process, financing the purchase of a house and other consumer loans, saving for retirement and other goals, selecting a financial advisor, taxes, estate planning, behavioral finance and common investment scams. Specific investment products studied include mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, municipal bonds, alternative investments (including hedge funds, private equity funds, and commodities), annuities, and insurance products. Consideration will be given to the problem of an entrepreneur or start-up employee who has a substantial fraction of personal wealth invested in a single business venture, including evaluating stock-and option-based compensation plans. Over the duration of the course, students will work to develop a personal financial plan.

Prerequisites: SME2021

FIN7519 Personal Financial Management
3 Elective CreditsThis course teaches students to negotiate the retail financial landscape, emphasizing issues that have a large impact on their future financial well-being. It assumes no finance knowledge other than first-year finance. The course covers topics such as selecting a financial adviser, financing the purchase of a house, college saving, retirement saving, behavioral finance, trusts, and investment frauds and scams. Specific investment products studied include mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, municipal bonds, emerging markets, alternative investments (including hedge funds, private equity funds, and commodities), annuities, and insurance products. Consideration will be given to the problem of an entrepreneur or start-up employee who has a substantial fraction of personal wealth invested in a single business venture, including evaluating stock- and option-based compensation plans. Over the duration of the course, students may work to develop a personal financial plan for themselves, or if they prefer, for a fictional person with a defined set of financial traits.

Prerequisites: None but it is recommended that students take FIN7200 or FIN7800 first

MSA6600 Personal Project
6 Credits (MSAEL Core)This course bridges key MSAEL Program learnings into demonstrated application, by delivering real Project impact, while enhancing the ability to mobilize others to drive organizational growth and renewal. With Faculty coaching each student will identify, in alignment with their work stakeholders, a specific challenge or opportunity at their organization. Clear Learning Plan frameworks, built on Project Management under Uncertainty principles, will be used to frame their project considering stakeholder needs, potential resistance to change, benefits of implementation and leadership challenges (self, others, organization). Their Entrepreneurial Leadership Project Action Plan, with relevant Analytics, will be reviewed for progress through ongoing check-points with Faculty, and key stakeholders inside their organization. By the end of this Capstone course, the student successfully implements a measurable pilot solution and a plan for further actions.

COM7500 Persuasive Business Presentations
(Formerly MOB7502)
1.5 Credits

If you have taken and passed MOB7502, you cannot register for COM7500, as these two courses are equivalentManagers and entrepreneurs need effective presentation skills to persuade key audiences, such as employees and team members, investors, and prospective clients. A successful presentation depends on delivery and non-verbal factors as well as careful preparation and a logical organization of ideas.

In this workshop format class, you will deliver four or five formal presentations, which we will video record to help you evaluate your technique. We will also give you some opportunities for impromptu speaking. Topics may include: rocket pitch to investors, B2B sales presentation, strategic recommendation to senior management, and a technical financial or data-driven presentation. Students are encouraged to use material from other courses or from your work context. We will also cover creating effective visuals and interacting with your visuals to tell a compelling story. The focus will be on providing extensive and constructive feedback and coaching you on assessing and improving your own capabilities.

Prerequisites: None

HUM 4608: Philosophy, Race and Revolution in the Euro-Modern World

4 advanced liberal arts credits

This course will explore efforts by philosophers to respond to the contradictions of Euro-modern society, the political phenomenon of race being primary among them. Doing so will require an examination of how some human beings have sought to reform unjust social and political milieus. Though we will also ask whether such efforts are sufficient. Such questioning demands, among other things, study of more radical efforts at social change, including those of revolutionary political activity. In addition to philosophers' contributions to such projects, our course will also examine how writers, artists, and even scientists have responded to the ongoing colonization of our knowledge, political sphere, and civil society, particularly by forces seeking to profit from the transformation of some human beings into the damned of the earth. Our goal as a class will be to reflect on how we might conceptualize and take up our responsibilities in such a world.

Prerequisites: Any combinations of 2 intermediate liberal arts (HSS, LTA, CSP)

PHO1100 Photography

4 Free Elective Credits

Introduction to Digital & Darkroom Photography is an art course designed to explore visual ideas and concepts about photography as an expressive art medium. Content in a picture and its emotional and aesthetic value is of paramount importance and one of the most essential communicative tools of our era. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of photography with an objective to master the manual camera operating modes, compositional elements, light, color, and black and white imaging. We will learn digital software editing applications and digital printing using Adobe Photoshop software programs. In addition, we will also learn the art and craft of the traditional darkroom using 35mm film cameras and wet-lab printing. Digital workflow terminology and digital printing will be explored in the first part of the term followed by darkroom techniques in the second segment of our class. This foundation course will form the basis of further studies within photography while emphasizing the rich cultural and historical vocabulary associated with this time and narrative based medium.

Note: Babson Photography program has 35mm film cameras and lenses to check out but only a limited number of digital fully manual cameras on reserve. Students are responsible for providing their own digital camera, film and printing papers. You will have 24/7 access to both the digital and darkroom labs.

Prerequisites: None

LTA2049 Seeking Enrichment: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Literature

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe novelist Joyce Carol Oates has said, _To be an American is to be a kind of pilgrim ... a seeker after truth. The pilgrim is our deepest and purest self. In this course we'll explore the character of the pilgrim in selected fiction, essays, and poems, using questions such as: What inspires someone to take and retake pilgrimages: long, often difficult journeys far from home? What friendships and other communities form along the way and why? What besides self-enrichment do pilgrims hope to find, or possibly lose? Through close reading, discussion, and written analyses, we'll study how writers use setting, plot, and theme to consider these questions. There will also be one field trip, which will serve as a local pilgrimage. Course texts may include contemporary works by Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula Le Guin, and Curtis Sittenfeld, as well as selections from Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer, Basho, and Thoreau.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring

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