Hello. This is Jose Vazquez, and we are here talking to you from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. In fact, we're at the student union at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, which is the perfect place to introduce this class in economics. Because, as we're going to tell you in the course, economics is everywhere. So, it's clearly here in the Union where students actually are buying their food. we can ask questions as to why they are making these lines? Are these lines too long? Should they open another cash register? Why are they selling the coffee which I have here in a Plastic cup instead of a ceramic cup, which probably creates less waste. why students actually spend time studying here, instead of studying at their dorms? So, what we're going to talk about in this class is all of all those things. Economics is everywhere. It's the study of lines, it's the study of love, it's the study of coffee, it's the study of everything. And my goal for you in taking this class is by understanding economics, you should be able to make better decisions as a citizen. Should you vote or not? Should you buy the car you are thinking of buying? Should you study another hour for an exam? If you went on a date with someone, should you go on a second date? As a business owner, should you open another cash register if you have a business here in the union? Should you higher an older employee instead of, or choose to buy higher, buy another machine. All of those questions are questions that deal with economics and we'll deal with those in this course. So the other thing you're probably wondering is that, how do you pass the class and how much you have to do to pass the class. Well in this class that's a complicated question because you can really customize your work in this class whichever way you want. We have basically 3 things you can do in this class discussions and work on discussions with other people. a final project and then watch video lectures and do quizzes related to the video lectures. You can choose to do the three of them, or you can choose to do one of them or two of them. It is really designed so you can choose your own path. Now if you chose to do the 3 things, you probably going to spend between let's say 5 to 10 hours at the most a week on working on this. But at the end, I think you, you you be satisfied with not only learning more about the economics of everywhere the study of everything but also about the particular skill of critical think of critical thinking that you can probably apply to your daily life. So, I hope to see you in the, the class and next time I see you will probably be the first lecture.