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Final post

            Most of the 400 level economics classes I have taken, have not required attendance. Nearly all of them strongly encouraged it by reviewing the homework questions prior to the due date or limiting the slide shows posted on compass. The classes I have taken where attendance is required have almost exclusively been intro level classes, one hundred or two hundred level. I think the theory behind this is that intro level classes are needed to form a foundation of knowledge, but upper level classes are chosen and should fit your interests. In this system you are more or less forced to learn the intro material, even if it is in area you aren’t interested in. However, in later classes, attendance is expected to be higher because these classes aren’t specifically required, but rather chosen from a list. Although this is what would theoretically happen, in reality when attendance isn’t required not as many students show up to class regardless of the level of class.           
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Recent posts

Blog Post 10

This summer when I was an intern there was a clear triangle arrangement between the company I worked for and the client. I worked for a consulting company, so each project employees had to answer to their project manager as well as the client. It is important to make the client happy because they ultimately hired the consulting firm, but in the long run it is also important to please the project manager. The project manager is someone who you work with from project to project and they ultimately decide your compensation and any possibility of promotions.  I was only an intern for ten weeks, and I never had any direct contact with the client; however, every week I sat in internal calls as well as weekly calls with the client. Most of these calls were simply status updates and nothing eventful happened. When I was first brought in, it was clear the client was very concerned with the security of their data. The client was a large insurance firm, so it is fitting that they
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Blog Post 9

When employees do very similar work, it is easier to see who is more productive and who is not as productive. Tensions can arise among people when they feel that they are working harder than the rest of the team. When I worked at a textbook warehouse after my freshman year, nearly all the employees did the same work. There were a few supervisors, but most of the employees were warehouse associates. As warehouse associates, we had to take tubs of books and put the books in different areas throughout the warehouse. There was a computer system that tracked how productive an employee was, so in theory everyone should be doing approximately the same amount of work. Even though everyone had the same productivity requirements and this seemed like very simple work, there were people who did not do the best work. My coworkers, let’s call them Larry and Johnson, were two people who exemplified this variety in the quality of work.  Larry would always use his phone during his shift and cut co
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Blog Post 8

            My sophomore year of college I joined the boxing club here on campus. I had no experience with boxing but joined it with a few friends because it seemed like fun. I first learned about the club on quad day and everyone I spoke with described how it doesn’t have to be competitive. It was set up in a way, that there was essentially a club inside of the club. People who had boxing experience or wanted to compete could try out for the team. Being part of the team ultimately meant that in the spring you would compete in a tournament against amateur boxers from other schools; however, being part of the team also meant stricter rules. Each week we had three practices Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Most non-team members only typically went to two out of three practices; however, if you were on the team you were expected to go to three practices a week. If someone not on the team missed a significant number of practices, no one would care. On the other hand, if a team member m
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Blog Post 7

Many classes I have taken have required attendance and require you to sign in or answer an I-clicker question in order to receive credit; however, all of them offered at least a few free absences. In my experience, most days this greatly increased the overall class attendance, but for a few days out of the year attendance would drop off significantly. Classes on Fridays before breaks or long weekends had a significantly lower attendance, even lower than those with no attendance policy. Much like the article that talked about how more parents were late to pick up their kids after a fine was imposed, students were more likely to skip classes that required attendance but offered a few days of allowed skips. When these students use their free skips, they are essentially purchasing an absence. They don’t feel bad about skipping class because they are giving up one of their free absences. Attendance in all classes before break is generally lower but having a certain number of absences se
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Risk

Coming out of high school, I was split between engineering and business majors. I enjoyed my science, math, accounting, and economics classes, however, I enjoyed the business and economics classes slightly more. Ultimately I chose what I saw as the safer choice, engineering. Engineering degrees typically earn more money and it is easier to get into the business field  with an MBA, regardless of your undergraduate degree. I didn’t have a strong preference, so I picked the safer option. This is similar to the equilibrium game where the Pareto dominated outcome is the expected outcome. Although I enjoyed my business classes slightly more, I went with what I believed had the lowest risk. As you can probably tell, this decision was the right one for me because I am now happily in economics. Looking back at it, I wish I was more risk prone and had originally chosen  a business related major. Each summer I worked or had an internship to gain experience and ultimately get a better
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Connecting the Dots

1.       Half of my blog posts connect the prompts back to my work experience, interning and working as a warehouse associate. This isn’t all surprising to me because a large portion of the topics so far are somehow related to the workforce. Another theme that I noticed when reviewing my old posts is that all of them are pessimistic. They point out negative aspects of jobs I’ve had or poke holes in situations I’ve been in. I didn’t intentionally do this and only noticed once I reread them. I’m assuming this is because it could be easier to write from a negative point of view and I subconsciously was doing this. 2.         Within my opportunism blog post, I was able to connect to the idea of labor being used as a buffer. I experienced it firsthand and never truly realized exactly what was happening until I took this class. Looking back at it now, it is clear that I could have connected this idea into my first blog post. This was a post about transaction costs and during part of it
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