I think I've asked a few of you which courses you will be doing next year. I would recommend Intermediate Micro, you will be taught some very interesting stuff, especially Game Theory.
The first game you will be shown is the Prisoner's Dilemma, nicely summarized in this post. Lots of people don't like the PD story, mainly because they do not understand it. The point of this story is not that people are selfish or not to be trusted. Rather, the point is that given these payoffs, the equilibrium shown is the only one possible.
As I said in my last post, you are being taught how to get from X, a set of assumptions, to Y, an equilibrium given those assumptions. The PD is a nice introduction to Game Theory because it has a simple solution and an easy to understand narrative.
Other games could just as easily have an equilibrium where it makes sense for everyone to co-operate and there are very simple revisions to the basic PD setup which lead to that outcome. See if you can come up with them yourselves.
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