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Optimization is the language of the course
A large share of the material can be read as one question: given a constraint, what choice maximizes an objective, and how does that choice change when the environment changes?
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01:220:320 · Economics · School 01 — New Brunswick School of Arts and Sciences
Intermediate Microeconomic Analysis takes the ideas from introductory microeconomics and makes them more formal. Rutgers describes the course as a study of households and firms as maximizing agents, then follows the implications for demand, supply, competition, monopoly, general equilibrium, and welfare economics. The department's sample syllabus shows that the course usually leans on calculus to analyze consumer choice, producer behavior, market structure, and policy-relevant market failures.
Can I take it?
Intro To Microeconom · Calculus I For The Life And Social Sciences · Calculus I For Mathematical And Physicalsciences
How hard?
Students rate teaching
SIRS · 2,682 responses · 2014–2025
Spring 2027
4 open in snapshot · 3 instructors
When it meets
College Avenue
Checked-in sections · current seat counts are unavailable.
MTh 12:10 PM · College Avenue · 1 section · 1 open
MW 5:40 PM · College Avenue · 1 section · 1 open
AI-generated overview
Higher means more demanding · AI summary
5 units · topic sequence may vary by instructor
The course usually opens by formalizing how consumers make choices under scarcity. Instead of stopping at intuitive demand curves, it pushes students into utility maximization, budget constraints, and comparative statics, which is where the calculus prerequisite starts to matter in a visible way.
A second block usually mirrors the consumer side for firms: how production choices, costs, and input decisions shape supply. The practical skill is moving between verbal descriptions, graphs, and optimization problems without losing the economic meaning of the math.
Once households and firms are modeled separately, the course combines them in competitive product and labor markets. This is where equilibrium becomes the organizing idea: prices coordinate decisions, and students study what happens when shocks, taxes, or policy interventions move the market away from a benchmark outcome.
The syllabus then shifts away from perfectly competitive benchmarks and asks what changes when firms have market power. This part tends to compare monopoly and other imperfectly competitive settings against the competitive baseline, with attention to pricing, output, and welfare tradeoffs.
Late-course material broadens the toolkit to settings where standard market results break down. The sample syllabus explicitly includes factor markets, market failure, uncertainty, and asymmetric information, so the ending usually feels like a bridge from core theory into applied policy questions.
Public Rutgers discussion tends to describe Intermediate Micro as one of the more math-forward economics core courses. The recurring advice is that the course is manageable when students keep up with attendance, worksheets, and calculus refreshers, but it becomes much harder when optimization methods are treated as something to cram at the last minute.
A large share of the material can be read as one question: given a constraint, what choice maximizes an objective, and how does that choice change when the environment changes?
The course uses perfect competition to establish a clean baseline, then studies what changes when firms have market power, information is uneven, or externalities exist.
Household and firm behavior only becomes economic analysis once prices, quantities, and market-clearing conditions connect those decisions into one system.
Ideas like efficiency, deadweight loss, and market failure matter because they let students evaluate taxes, regulation, and other interventions using the same framework.
Common pitfall
Instead
Work every derivative or optimization step with an economic story attached: what is being maximized, what is constrained, and what changes when a parameter moves?
Common pitfall
Instead
Explain why a curve slopes the way it does and what behavior or constraint produces that shape before you try to memorize the picture.
Common pitfall
Instead
Refresh derivatives, partial derivatives, and constrained-choice methods early, then keep using them while the consumer and producer units unfold.
Common pitfall
Instead
Separate positive analysis from normative judgment: first identify the equilibrium effect, then ask how efficiency, surplus, or distribution changes.
4 open · College Avenue
| Section | Status | Instructor | Meeting | Campus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0114638 | Open | Catovic | Tuesday 2:00 PM-3:20 PM at MU 213; Thursday 2:00 PM-3:20 PM at MU 213MU 213 | College Avenue |
| 0214639 | Open | Catovic | Tuesday 3:50 PM-5:10 PM at MU 212; Thursday 3:50 PM-5:10 PM at MU 212MU 212 | College Avenue |
| 0414641 | Open | Bingxiao Wu | Monday 12:10 PM-1:30 PM at MU 213; Thursday 12:10 PM-1:30 PM at MU 213MU 213 | College Avenue |
| 0614643 | Open | Sue Bhuyan | Monday 5:40 PM-7:00 PM at ABE 4400; Wednesday 5:40 PM-7:00 PM at ABE 4400ABE 4400 | College Avenue |
Historical student surveys
Teaching
3.84
Course quality
3.83
Response rate
53.3%
Coverage
79 offerings · 2014–2025
| Instructor | Offerings | Teaching | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joseph Hughes | 14 | 3.04 | 3.22 |
| Jennifer Hunt | 9 | 3.51 | 3.48 |
| Susan Bhuyan | 6 | 4.55 | 4.47 |
| Bhuyan Susan | 5 | 4.42 | 4.36 |
| Daijiro Okada | 5 | 4.20 | 4.02 |
| Okada Daijiro | 4 | 4.43 | 4.33 |
Catalog and planning context
Credits
3
Current campuses
College Avenue
Current availability
4 open of 4
Catalog terms
Fall, Spring, Summer
Core codes
SOEHS
Loaded terms
6
((01:220:102 or 11:373:121 or 21:220:101) and (01:640:135)) <em> OR </em> ((01:220:102 or 11:373:121 or 21:220:101) and (01:640:151)) <em> OR </em> ((01:220:102 or 11:373:121 or 21:220:101) and (01:640:139)) <em> OR </em> ((01:220:102 or 11:373:121 or 21:220:101) and (01:640:130))
No direct degree-list membership appears in the checked-in requirement index.