Team Production

After reading the assigned articles, it made me more aware of growing up with your siblings as an example of teamwork. Personally I grew up with 3 younger sisters and in ways, I really see how this better prepared me to work with others today. Specifically with the sibling who is closest to me in age, one of my sisters is two years younger than me. Thinking back to my childhood, there were a lot of scenarios where my siblings and I were forced to work as a team. For most of us, these experiences from a young age serve as the building blocks for teamwork later on in life. From my observations, people who are only children don’t work in teams as well people with siblings. This might be a unique result of the only children I know, or could be a more common occurrence.

Building on the belief that people’s teamwork skills benefit from growing up with siblings, we are faced with ample opportunities to both work on and use these skills in the real world. From playing team sports in middle/high school all the way up to the jobs we will work for the majority of our careers. The success of a high school football team relies heavily on the ability of the players to play as a team. One team could have a handful of elite players, but not perform as well as a team with comparatively worse in skill players who play as a cohesive unit. The team that is willing to work well together is rewarded with the ability to be victorious. In college a lot of the classes we take require us to work in small groups. This can be for group projects, homework assignments, etc. If a few students decided not to participate and pull their own weight and “Let George do it,” then the group will probably not perform as well, directly effecting the result of the group’s work. How well the group does is reliant on how well the members work together. After college, a lot of us will be required to work as part of a team for our jobs. In certain divisions of the business, people are often required to work with a variety of coworkers on a project. On a larger level, each division of the company is required to work together. For example the HR must work with the Sales and Finance divisions. At the end of the day, the success of the company is in large part reliant on how well the individuals are able to work together. A common theme behind these examples is that the success of the team is related to how well the teams work together. Success can be seen as an incentive to work well with your team members.

I believe that being able to work well with others in a team is a valuable skill to have in order to lead a successful life. From a larger level and applying this belief to the readings, it seems that for the most part the concept of working as team can be applied to individuals making up our complete society. If every individual decided to act selfishly, then at the end of the day the success of the society might not reach it’s complete potential. We have to assume that most people are going to act in their best interests. However, it is crucial that parts of our society work together in order for continued success.

Consumption Spending / Future Income Risk

As assumed in the prompt, I don’t yet have a job lined up for when I graduate. This along with a variety of other factors has and will continue to effect my consumption spending both now and after I graduate. For the most part everything I have done in college has had an opportunity cost associated with it that also has had an effect on my consumption spending. From my understanding of the prompt, two key factors must be looked at when considering my future consumption spending potential: 1) What type of job I will have after graduation and its location   and 2) Decisions I have made in college that have contributed to an increase in my savings account vs. cost me money that I could have saved.

Ultimately the largest factor associated with my future consumption spending is what type of job I will have after graduation and where it is located. I will first focus on the location of the jobs as it has a variety of interesting and important factors that come along with it. Like most of us, if I choose to get a job close to home I would be able to live with my parents for a short time period if need be in order to save up more money towards a nicer place of my own. This would allow me to save the money that I would be spending on rent, property taxes, food, and/or a variety of other factors that would be added in that come with living on your own. I could save up this money for a later use, which I’m sure would be the best use. This could also create an opportunity where I would have a lot of extra spending cash to spend on toys and/or vacations with my friends. However, my parents would never allow this, and by now I realize this would be a terrible financial move in the long run. Either way, living at home would directly correlate to the possibility of increased consumption spending. Another aspect of getting a job close to home, but not living at home, is that where I am from the cost of living is much lower than in larger cities like Chicago and some of the nicer suburbs. However, there is the trade off of wage difference included to this as well. For an entry-level job, the salary difference would be minimal, but later on in life I would have much more income potential in a larger city. This is a trade off I need to consider when deciding if going back home to work would actually be worth it. If I decide to go straight to living in a city like Chicago or somewhere similar, I would be spending much more on rent and other living expenses. I would have less extra spending cash and probably be saving/ investing less, but ultimately would have much more business connections (friends from school) and long run income potential.

The type of job I have after college is also an important factor in the potential of my consumption spending. For the most part, a lot of entry-level jobs I am applying for have roughly the same starting income. Some of these also have commissions attached to them that could be used as an incentive to work harder in order to make even more money. Being an economics major, there are a lot of possible career options I could pursue. As compared to say an accounting major, there are a lot less “guaranteed good money” jobs for recent graduates, that could also contribute to my own consumption spending as compared to a friend of mine studying accounting. I see this at only the entry-level though, as I believe after a few years economics students have the possibility to have just as good, if not better jobs that accounting majors.

Now I will shift to focusing on the choices I have made in the past and considering their impacts on my consumption spending in the future. As a full time college student without a job during the school year, I have mainly relied on money I have saved up from summer jobs as well as received from my parents in order to pay for the majority of my things at school. I could have worked part time while being a student and saved this money up, but I feel I would have missed out on a lot of things I have had the privilege of experiencing during my time here on campus. We have all learned early on in our economics education that there is opportunity costs associated to almost every decision. This is especially true to how one decides to live while being a student in college. I could have spent my free time making minimum wage at some job here in town, but decided not to. On top of studying in my free time, I joined a variety of groups on campus that I was interested in. I could have been making and saving money in a job, but I decided to get the most out of my college experience through these organizations. One of these organizations is a prominent social fraternity here on campus. This organization has cost me a lot of money (dues, going out multiple nights a week, special clothing for events, etc.) that I could have been saving or investing. This is money that I won’t have to spend upon graduation. However, justifying this, I believe my experiences in the groups I have joined have been an investment in myself. I might not have as much spending cash when I graduate, but the experiences I have gone through within my fraternity will benefit me in the real world when I graduate. My decision to join these organizations might have cost me more money, where I could be working, but I believe they will pay off in the future.

Working as a lifeguard/head lifeguard during summers during high school and a few of my college summers, I was able to work 40 plus hours a week every summer and save up a decent amount of money to bring with me to college. However, instead of working in college, I used this money to live off as well as for leisure times such as vacations and new electronics. Because of this, I will have less of a savings account upon graduation, and will need to rely more on the income from my job.

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.