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Senior Year
Experience
In the department of economics, we believe our mission
is to produce creative decision makers. Creative
decision makers are people who have learned to adapt
their expertise to find the best solution when they are
faced with new problems.
These people differ from others because:
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They do not simply view problems as a way to apply
existing knowledge.
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They are comfortable with the notion of continuous,
lifelong learning.
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They are expert learners.
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They have the ability to transfer learning to new
diverse contexts.
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They are not locked into one narrowly-defined job,
but rather have the capacity to learn a variety of
jobs.
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They will be more likely to succeed in whatever their
chosen path.
We believe that the best way to develop these
abilities is to practice solving real-world,
ill-structured problems. And that is precisely what the
senior economics experience is all about.
Life is full of problems that are murky, messy and
maddening. We like to refer to these as
ill-structured problems. People who manage to
solve ill-structured problems will find success in
life. We can all agree that one goal of a college
education is to prepare students for life. Thus,
we feel like we have an obligation to teach you in such
a way so that you learn how to solve ill-structured
problems. (Lilly, Redington and Tiemann, 1999)
Goals of Senior Thesis
Fall 2007
Syllabus
Spring 2008 Deadlines
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