FIN3520 Security Valuation
4 General Elective CreditsThis course is designed for students interested in investment banking, fixed-income valuation or equity analysis. Students develop tools and techniques for the valuation of different securities. Topics covered include: bond pricing, bond duration, the term-structure of interest rates, financial statement analysis, equity valuation models, and firm valuation. A major focus of this class is the valuation of specific firms and securities using finance theory and applications.

Prerequisites: SME2021 or FIN2000

Recommended: ACC3502

NST2085 Socio-Ecological Prairie Systems
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits

**NST2085 AND LVA2085 are two separate courses and students are held responsible to register for the course that they would like to receive credit for.**

Socio-ecological systems (SES) are linked systems of people with nature, emphasizing that humans must be seen as a part of, not apart from nature. This course will explore the nature of the prairie, both as a socio-ecological system and as a subject for exploration and contemplation for visual and literary artists. Before the Euro-American (un)settlement of the North American middle west-about 150 years ago-the tallgrass prairie extended for approximately 145 million acres from Canada to Texas. Now, after several generations of overgrazing, plowing, and the intensities of agricultural production, there remains less than 5% of what some scientists call our most endangered ecosystem. We will investigate how prairies function, study the causes and consequences of related ecological patterns and processes in prairie landscapes, describe both the loss and restoration of prairie environments, and appreciate the potential for the role of the arts in naming, analyzing, and imagining solutions relating to the examination and repair of prairie systems. Studying SES allows for the development of important skills for future leaders, such as approaches for incorporating uncertainty, nonlinearity, and self-reorganization from instability. Transdisciplinary approaches will be employed to address complex temporal, spatial, and organizational scales to investigate real world challenges.

Prerequisites: NST1 and FCI1000 and WRT1001

SES2000 Socio-Ecological Systems

4 Credits

Special Topic Descriptions: https://babson.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/SESTeachingFaculty/EWYrFfzN_uZDhS_m8w-TmAcBP35aZg1XkbeRQAjsQ7HapQ?e=pc4LSt&CID=4F7F0C1A-ED6A-4E61-9AB9-A0476C8E2B98

This co-taught course will integrate across the social sciences and ecological sciences to focus on socio-ecological systems(SES), which are linked systems of people with nature, emphasizing that humans must be seen as a part of, not apart from nature. These connected systems are complex, adaptive, and are governed by feedbacks within and between social and bio-physical processes. Studying SES allows for the development of important skills desperately needed for future business leaders, such as approaches for incorporating uncertainty, nonlinearity, and self-reorganization from instability. Students will be taught systems thinking and how to identify and develop an understanding of the interdependent and interrelated structures and feedbacks of dynamic systems. Transdisciplinary approaches will be employed to address complex temporal, spatial, and organizational scales to investigate real world challenges. Beyond just social impact businesses or corporate social responsibility, teaching system dynamics for sustainability allows students to develop as system change leaders.

This course will directly address the new integrated sustainability theme and will provide a strong background for all of our students in integrative systems thinking, ecological integrity, and structural injustice. Students will be introduced to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Planetary Boundaries Framework, resilience strategies, and leverage points for systems-based change for sustainability. Students will also learn concept mapping techniques as a way of visually representing complex systems, their relationships, and indirect connections and feedback effects. The skills learned can then be expanded and built from in subsequent elective courses. There are multiple content versions of this course including Climate Systems, Food Systems, Natural Disaster and Resilience Systems, Prairie Systems, Urban Systems, and Water Systems that are offered across different semesters.

Prerequisites: NST 10XX and FCI 1000 and WRT 1001

QTM2622 Sports Applications of Mathematics
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsMathematicians and statisticians are playing an increasing role in shaping how athletic contests are played and how they are judged. This course examines some of the underlying quantitative principles that are routinely used. Students will apply some statistical techniques (expectations, probability and risk/reward judgments) and some that are deterministic (optimization, ranking and validation.) A variety of software packages will be used to demonstrate the many ways that a mathematical point of view can inform athletes, trainers, administrators and fans.

Prerequisites: QTM1010 or AQM2000

NST2040 Case Studies in Sustainable Food Systems
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat is food - where does it come from, how is it grown, what resources does it use, what's the difference between a GMO and an organic product, what do labels mean, is it sustainable? This course looks to take a scientific and systems based look at the food we eat and deeply examine all of the steps that occur between "farm to table". We need food to survive and food must be grown, cultivated, harvested, processed, and distributed so that we can benefit from it. These steps take place in different ways all across the globe, across the country, and among our neighbors. In this class, we'll look at what it means to be a sustainable food system, look at historical approaches that worked to meet/deviate from this goal, and look at how the future aims to feed a growing world with increasingly diminishing resources.

By the end of this course, you will recognize the importance of sustainable food systems and know the different areas that comprise this system. You will be able to distinguish between sustainable and non-sustainable food systems. Through this design, this course meets the college learning goals of Rhetoric, Quantitative and Information Analysis, Ethics and SEERS, and Critical and Integrative Thinking.

Prerequisites: NST10%%

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