Illinibucks

The use of “Illinibucks” on our campus is an interesting proposal. As we all know, allocation times for class registration are set on a priority basis. From my understanding, special groups like James Scholars go first followed by class level seniority. To me this makes sense as seniors have less time to complete all their required classes for their major as compared to younger students. I wander if this incentive based currency could create a large change in this priority system and possibly create issues with people graduating on time.

I am also curious as to how these “Illinibucks” would be given out. Will there be incentives for students to receive more than their peers or will each student receive the same amount? A scenario I can think of that might work would be for each student in an incoming class to receive X amounts of the currency when they are admitted to the University. After each completed semester another allocation then goes out to all students, possibly more given to higher GPAs. Students have the option to bank all of these bucks to use in a later semester or use whenever they want. As a student progresses in their college career they have the option to spend each semester or save them up to use to spend on priority registration for a competitive class. This gives students options without being too limiting.

In the above scenario, all students start off with the same amount of currency when being admitted to the University and then have the option to save them up to use later or use each semester. There are a variety of factors related to “Illinibucks” that if changed can have a major impact on their use and effectiveness. This currency could be incentive based and given out to those that succeed in their classes. That way those that want to take more competitive classes might actually get the most out of them. The same amount of the currency could also be given out to every student at once. Under this scenario, most students would be able to use all of their points in order to sign up for one or two priority classes and then have to wait to see what’s open to fill up their schedule. Another factor about this currency that would have a large effect on its usefulness is if it were to be allowed to be used for anything other than skipping the line to register.

Would these “Illinibucks” only be used for advancing priority when registering for classes, or could they be used as a more general currency on campus? There could be the option to use them sort of like I-card credits that freshman student’s use at places like the Ike. Since there is no cost to students for receiving this currency (i.e. they are provided by the University) it seems their use as a general currency would have to be limited. For example students that save up a decent amount of bucks could use them for products useful for their studies. There could be a system at the Union bookstore were students could use “Illinibucks” to purchase things ranging from a coffee between class to notecards and other school supplies. This could also be an incentive system for students to do better in their classes.

I think this proposed currency has options to be useful on campus. However, there are a lot of issues associated with the currency that make me wander how well it would work. The price of what they are worth is a key factor that needs to be decided. The University would have to decide the value of using these to register for classes.

Successful Team

I just so happened to be watching the Cubs while reading the prompt for this week’s discussion. While I have been part of many teams in my life, none seem to be nearly as successful as this year’s Cubs team. While they have only been the best team in the MLB all year and have clinched the NL Central, they haven’t yet had a playoff game, so I am being hopeful of continued success. As I’m sure most people are aware, the Cubs franchise owns one of the longest championship droughts in all of professional sports. They haven’t won a World Series in over one hundred years. As an avid Cubs fan and someone who follows the game closely from a statistical level, I believe this Cubs team to be an example of a next to perfect team. Hopefully one that will finally break the curse and win the World Series.

Going along with the Cubs as an example of a successful team, there are many factors one could point out that are the cause to the success. As with most baseball teams, the organization is set up with a few executives at top and a whole team of coaches that help lead the team of players on a daily basis. In the case of the Cubs, I think they owe a lot of their success to the owners going out and hiring arguably the best General Manager in the league, Theo Epstein. Theo is a proven leader in the baseball world having previously turned the Boston Red Sox organization around. I believe having a proven team leader is the ultimate key for a successful team. In this unique example, Theo has the responsibilities to not only hire new members of the team, but also make sure they can all work together in a meaningful manor. Under Theo, the owners of the team went and hired Joe Maddon, who is arguably one of the best baseball managers in the league. These two managers together give the team the adequate leadership they need in order to be successful.

Using a baseball team as an example, I understand that there are a lot of different factors that can lead to the success of a team. There are the quality of the leadership and players themselves all the way to unfortunate injuries and players not playing up to their expectations. Already laying out the management of the team, a large part of the success is the players and the way they have played this season. The management of the Cubs has done a phenomenal job at building a team of players that play well together as well as put up statistically favorable numbers. In baseball teams are built from within as well as by signing free agents. This starts with building a farm system of talented young players and training them to get the most out of their potential. However, no matter how talented a player can be, he can always have character or other issues that cause him to not fulfill his projected potential. There is a little bit of luck associated with this. In the case of the Cubs, I believe their management has done a great job at drafting/signing players with the athletic talent as well as character make up in order to create one of the best all around teams in baseball our era might ever see. In the case of using a sports team as an example for this assignment, the case of “being a good teammate” is a large part of the success of the team. The management and other leaders on the team can only do so much to get the players prepared on a daily basis. The team members cannot act selfishly and must act by putting the team first. I believe this year’s current Cubs team is one of the best examples of all of these aspects of a team coming together. Hopefully the success of this team will continue over the next couple of weeks throughout the playoffs. 

Opportunism

Being raised in an environment where high morals were expected in almost all circumstances, I was often expected to not act opportunistically. For the most part, this was expected from most people in the town I grew up in, so I didn’t really know anything different until later on in life. I believe this could be the result of a high concentration of Christian upbringings in the area. I was certainty aware of taking advantage of certain opportunities in order to better one’s self, but I didn’t have much experience with people exploiting this at the cost of others well being. My first year here at the University of Illinois proved as an eye opening experience being surrounded by people from all walks of life that might not share the same “good citizen” upbringing. No extreme examples come to mind, but it was apparent that this environment was much more cutthroat than what I was used to. There was defiantly a bit of a transition phase, but I will look at this as a crucial learning experience for this is how the majority of the world actually works. I have also learned that in most cases, success is created through realizing opportunities and taking advantage of them. These lessons will hopefully benefit me after I graduate while working for an organization in the real world.

An example that comes to mind of a time I didn’t act opportunistically is when I let a friend of mine borrow two books for an entire semester. One of these books was a Stewart calculus book that I had previously purchased new for around $200 and the other was a macroeconomics book I had purchased used for $80. With the high price of new textbooks in campus bookstores, a strong market for used textbooks has been created. Renting these books online even cost a significant amount. These two books offered no current use to me, but still held a lot of monetary value. I could have easily sold them on a used textbook website or Facebook student exchange page for a decent profit. I heavily considered this for the calculus book, as I wasn’t very happy with my performance in that class the previous semester and wanted nothing more than to get the book out of my face so that I could move on from the class. At the time, similar books were being sold for around $100 online.

Moving on to the start of the next semester, I became aware that a friend of mine would be taking the same calculus and macroeconomics class that the two books could be used for. He approached me and asked me if I by chance I still had the books from the previous semester and that if I did, he said that he would like to buy them off of me. Having quickly forgotten about the previous semesters books in a hustle to move out of my room at the end of the previous semester, I wasn’t even sure if I still had the books. Fortunately, I had thrown them in the trunk of my car where they were still sitting with a variety of other objects I had given up on. Knowing the price of both of these books new, my friend offered to pay me $120 total for both of the books. Thinking back to this now, this money could have been very helpful to pay for the following semesters books. However, in the midst of our transaction, I simply told him I wasn’t going to accept his money, but rather would accept a beer or two the next time we were both out at a local bar.

Thinking back to this now, if not to buy other books, that money could have been useful for a lot of things. However, I remember at the time that I felt didn’t feel right taking $120 for the books. I realize that although they didn’t offer much use to me at the time, that they still held monetary value. Having to guess what made me deny the money, I would have to say that I believe it was due to the way I was raised. There had to have been some sort of similar transaction that I was apart of or witnessed at a young age that had a similar “Pay it forward” approach. Thinking back to the transaction, I remember being enticed by the opportunity to sell my books, however as our conversation progressed, I quickly decided I wasn’t going to accept the money.

Organization

Having been a part of multiple organizations throughout my life, so far one of the more impactful experiences within an organization came in high school when I worked as a lifeguard for an aquatics center over the summers. This experience, although technically a first job and not as professional as most internships/jobs in the real world, will forever leave a lasting impression on my mind for how an organization /business is structured. I had the opportunity to have a leadership role in multiple other organizations around the time from being a captain of my football team to holding officer positions for a variety of other clubs, which would serve as groundwork for my expectations of further organizations, I would become a part of.  

After an interview process, I was hired after my freshman year of high school. Most people believe, and it might actually be the case at other pools, that the job of a lifeguard is a complete joke. I would even work for another aquatic center later on that was much more relaxed. However, my experience from initial job as a lifeguard was one that taught me values within an organization that I will take with me to each and every job I hold down the road. From learning valuable life skills like CPR to working with team members you might not be able to relate to well to experiencing how a business was supposed to be ran. Unlike many simple swimming pools, this center had a variety of features that presented dangers to people who weren’t familiar with the facility. In my five years working there we were fortunate not to have anything supper serious happen, but I definitely expected having to make some sort of save in the water on a daily basis. This aspect alone was unique to the organization as for many of us lifeguards it was the first time we would be tested with this level of responsibility.

The management of this organization was set up in the following format: a park commissioner, who was a publically elected official, a head manager, an assistant manager, and then two head lifeguards, and around 30 other lifeguards and other workers that helped the facility function on a daily basis. Each level would manage over the next, and the lower levels would all report to the upper levels. For the most part, the park commission was rarely around and the manager and assistant manager would split time on the premises to act as a mature resource in case of emergency and dealing with scheduling. After two years of having the same management, a new park commissioner was elected, which brought with it a variety of changes for the entire organization. Other than that, the Head lifeguards were in charge of everything else from customer relations to managing the lifeguards who were watching over the aquatic facilities. From my first day on the job I realized they were the glue to the organization that kept everything running smoothly. Then there are all the lifeguards ranging from young freshman in high school to students in college.

After two years of working as a lifeguard, I realized I was being scheduled much more than my peers and being asked to take on tasks that required more responsibility. Towards the end of my second summer working there, I was informed that I would be promoted to head lifeguard the following summer. At first I was unsure of how I would like this as I was still pretty young and much younger than the previous head guards. However, this taught me early on that doing things the right way in an organization should be the only way to do things. You can “half ass” your job and think people won’t notice, but realistically there are multiple people that do notice. Later on working as the head lifeguard for three years taught me even more about how the organization was ran. I believe this leadership opportunity taught me crucial work lessons that I will benefit from for many years into the future.

Willam Baumol

William Baumol is an American economist and professor at New York University. He is also an academic director at Berkley and a professor emeritus at Princeton University. He has been teaching at NYU for more than 36 years and Princeton for 43 years.He received his bachelor degree from the College of the City of New York in 1942. After initially being denied admission to the Ph.D. program at the London School of Economics, he was admitted to the Masters Program. However, his debate skills were recognized early on and within weeks he was switched over to the doctoral program. After earning his degree, he then went to Princeton where he would then supervise students who have gone on to be very well-known economists. He is well known for both his research and educational pieces as well as his work as an entrepreneur. Perhaps one of the things he is most famous for is his theory for cost disease which we have already learned about in this class. His work has also had huge contributions to the field of finance. Also, books he has written have been used around the world to teach business and economics students.