Seminar in Economics

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

• Use their knowledge of economics to conduct policy analysis; and

• Communicate their findings orally and in writing in a clear, coherent, professional, and informative manner.

• Produce a major paper on a public policy of the student’s choice;

• Learn how to formulate economic policy questions;

• Know how to find and use appropriate data to address economic policy questions;

• Know how to find, read, and cite appropriate scholarly works related to a given policy issue;

• Understand the difference between correlation and causation; and

• Use economic theory to predict the effects of a government policy.

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure	Percentage/Points
Research Paper	55%
First paper summary	5%
Literature review	5%
Theoretical model	5%
Identifying economic data	5%
Paper presentation	7%
Final draft of paper	28%
Other Assignments	45%
Discussion assignments (5 total)	25%
Paper summary assignment	5%
Empirical assignment	5%
Job preparation (2 total)	10%

Grading Scale

Percentage	Letter Grade
93% to 100%	A
90% to 92.9%	A-
86% to 89.9%	B+
83% to 85.9%	B
80% to 82.9%	B-
76% to 79.9%	C+
73% to 75.9%	C
70% to 72.9%	C-
66% to 69.9%	D+
63% to 65.9%	D
60% to 62.9%	D-
below 60%	F

Attendance/Participation:

Attendance/participation is not a graded component included in the student's final grade for this course.

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

Packback online discussion platform, which is included in the “First Day Complete” program.