The integrated Humanities course gives students the experience of each of the following four Humanities courses:
Business and Economics
Geography
Global Perspectives
History
Business and Economics, Global Perspectives, and Geography and History are taught as courses on rotation. Each course is twelve weeks in length.
This course aims to serve as an introduction to key topics within both the Economics and Business Studies curriculum. In Economics, students will gain insight into how the wider economy works, engaging in inquiry-based learning around current issues affecting local, national and international areas. In Business, students will look at how businesses design, implement and assess their marketing approaches in an effective and ethical manner.
Course content
The central economic tenets – opportunity cost, the economic problem, factors of production, needs and wants, scarcity and choice
Key economic/business concepts – equity vs efficiency, intervention, sustainability, innovation, change, ethics, culture
Economic systems – different systems used to allocate resources, including market, planned and mixed economic systems
Microeconomics – supply and demand with focus on diagrams and determinants. Movement along and shifts of demand and supply curves. Market equilibrium and market disequilibrium (excess demand and excess supply)
Elasticity of demand and supply – both qualitatively and quantitatively including the factors which underpin the concepts
Use of taxes, subsidies, regulation and laws – to change production and/or consumption
Market failure – negative externalities and policies used to reduce or remove them, common access resources and policies to regulate their use (including taxes, subsidies, regulation and laws)
Business start-up – how can a new firm ensure it becomes successful and is able to achieve its goals
The marketing mix (price, place, product and promotion) – How can a firm communicate and sell to its target market? This will be developed through a group exercise where students develop an idea, investigate how to produce a product, at what price to sell it and how best to promote it to the target audience
Skills developed
an understanding of business and economic theory, terminology and principles
the ability to apply the tools of economic analysis
the ability to distinguish between facts and value judgements in economic issues
an understanding of, and an ability to use, basic economic numeracy and literacy
the ability to take a greater part in decision-making processes in everyday life
an understanding of the economies of developed and developing nations
the ability to think critically around business decision making
Assessment
Students will be regularly formatively assessed, for both effort and achievement, on:
participation in class
knowledge and understanding of the concepts introduced
analysis, application and evaluation of data used
judgment and decision making within the context of the environment being studied
Students will complete a written commentary on a real world example of Market Failure and also a group assignment based on the Marketing Mix.
Students will sit a summative test at the end of the course.