PHL295: Business Ethics

OVERVIEW
As true to its course title, this course educates students on the ethics involved in business. Business-related topics such as outsourcing, whistle-blowing and ethical employment were discussed throughout the whole course. It does not go into detail regarding those mentioned issues; rather, different opinions from multiple parties were taken into consideration, leaving the students to judge whether those actions are good/bad.


LECTURES
The 3-hour weekly lectures bore me; its boredom is extended by the dull, monotonous lecturer, Prof. Don Waterfall. In each lecture, two 10-mins breaks would be given – however, they still fail to keep me awake throughout the lecture. Lectures are carried out based on the reading materials and sometimes additional information/opinions are explained so that students are able to grasp the idea/view with a better understanding. The lectures are just to provide guidance and help students understand better. Skip the lectures only if you are immensely confident that you understand the reading materials well.

TUTORIALS
There are NO tutorials for this course; help can be obtained from the professor himself. He is extremely helpful, always available upon request: Just send him an email and he’ll arrange an appointment with you promptly.

GRADES
There are 2 short papers (1 essay each), 1 final essay, 1 written exam (2 essays) and 1 final exam (3 essays). Every assignment/exam is similar to one another. You will be given a list of topics and you should choose a side (support or against, good or bad) and explain your rebuttals through an essay-type response. In a typical response, one would give an overview of the topic at hand as the introduction, followed by the rebuttals which would have key points/words mentioned in the lectures/reading materials (which must also be properly be explained). Basically, you would be trying to impress a general audience (who has no/minimal knowledge on ethics) by providing facts supported by theories. Since it’s an essay-based course, the marks would generally be around 60-80.

SUMMARY
It is an okay course and it’s relevant to engineering – ethics play a huge role in engineering. This course would be the one which I would advise to go for if you’re choosing between GGR107 and this.