ECON 180 - FS: First-Year Seminar

Credits: 4 First-year seminar. Prerequisite: First-year standing only. Topics vary by term and instructor.

Winter 2021, ECON 180-01: FS: The 4th Industrial Revolution and the Future of Work and Society (4). This fall, millions of students will head off to start college, eager to understand more about themselves and the world they will work and live in. The technologies of the 4th Industrial revolution - voice and facial recognition, machine learning, and algorithms to guide predictions, all of which fall under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, and industrial robotics - are emerging as defining features of the economic and social world they will encounter as students and in the labor force. The purpose of this course is to explore - the determinants and socioeconomic impact of - the fourth industrial revolution through an economic lens while also drawing on insights from other disciplines. Prompted by Samuelson - utilizing the full range of fundamental economic ideas and concepts found in a conventional course on the principles of micro and macroeconomics will be introduced, mastered, and drawn upon to facilitate our exploration of the 4th Industrial revolution. Although Samuelson was a visionary, he failed to recognize {articulate?} the benefits of simultaneously incorporating insights from other disciplines while learning the core forms of reasoning and analysis at the heart of conventional economics. This course will integrate relevant ideas from other disciplines with those of economics to provide students with a deeper - and richer - understanding of how the fourth industrial revolution is and will continue to shape and impact contemporary society. (SS1) Goldsmith and Casey. FDR: SS1 (if approved)