Select one of the options below:
How do individuals make personal decisions in everyday life (e.g., do I buy or rent)? How do firms make decisions about capital-intensive engineering efforts that maximize their profit (e.g., buy a fleet of electric vehicles)? How do government agencies justify policy decisions in the face of non-tangible future benefits (e.g., limiting greenhouse gas emissions)? In this course, students will learn and apply engineering economics principles to understand how individuals, firms and governments evaluate, justify and make decisions, with case examples in the arena of energy and the environment. Engineering economics employs mathematical techniques to evaluate the economic outcomes from a host of possible choices thereby providing a basis for rational decision-making. While the course title has the word “engineering” in it, the principles covered in this course comprise a toolset applicable to personal and public policy choices as well as engineering ones.
MATH 161 (Calculus for Physical Scientists II (GT-MA1)); Credit not allowed for both MECH 408 and MECH 410