Conflicts

As a college student, I mostly try to avoid conflict by negotiation nicely, but go back to when I was a teenager in high school, I can recall that I had a major conflict with the supervisor of the dorm in my boarding school.

I was a freshman in high school, and it was my first time going to boarding school, so as everyone, I had many complaints about the dorm restrictions and rules. One of the rules was, we were not allowed to bring in blow dryers to our dorm. The reason for that was, the blow dryer blows high temperature winds, and may cause potential dangers such as a fire. I would have to agree that this theory makes sense, but the chance of this accident happening was very small. It was okay in the summer because it was hot and hair gets try fast, but as it was getting cooler, it was almost a disaster for girls with long hair to not use the blow dryer after hair-washing. However, our dorm supervisor was obdurate, she explained that last year there was a girl who left her blow dryer on unattended on her bed, and the sheet was burnt.

As we had no hope to overturn the rule, we started to break it.I sneaked in my blow dryer and used it, but the blow dryer was really loud when using, so I got caught a few times. The first time, our dorm supervisor warned me, the second time she was extremely mad, and believed I was being very disrespectful to her. I explained that it was simply for my own convenience, and we ended up breaking into an major argument, she tried to grab the blow dryer from me, but I did not let her.

After several similar arguments between students, parents, and the dorm supervisor, the rule was modified eventually. The dorm supervisor said she would keep our blow dryers in her office, we might ask for it when needed, and return it after using. This solution was inefficient as the dorm super visor was in charge of around 40 students, but it was safe.

I do understand now that the dorm advisor was in charge of our safety, and wanted to avoid every risky factors, but I think this issue could be avoid if the rules was reasonable at the very beginning.  

Team production and gift exchange

Two developmental psychologist, Michael Tomasello and Katharina Hamann from Leipzig, Germany created a scenario in which three years old children can get rewards—marbles by pulling ropes on a machine, and they may be better off by engaging in gift exchanging and team work. There are three conditions of the study, the first one is that when two children pull their ropes together, one of the children gets 3 marbles, and the other gets 1. In this case, about 75% of time children would equalize their marbles. In the second condition, two children receive diffrent number of marbles, and one have three times more marbles than the other. In this case, few “rich” children would give their marbles to “poor” children. In the third condition, children still need to pull ropes to get marbles, one get three for every pulling, and the other only one. This time two children do not have to pull the rope together to get marbles, but they can just pull their own ropes for marbles, and 30% of children would equalize their marbles in this case. The author used this example to demonstrate that in economics people should focus more on procedural fairness instead of distributive fairness.

A relevant example I think of is me and my roommate.  I’m a better cook, so I’m the one who usually cook in my apartment, and my roommate usually do the dishes. In this case, my roommate does the dishes to exchange for a better-cooked meal, and I could save the time of doing dishes by cooking for both of us. But if we both bring carry-out home, we are less likely to share food, or do dishes for each other, which is similar to the second condition I mentioned in the above paragraph, two children already have marbles in front of them.

Another example would be going to camping. I went to camping last week, and I think it was a great example pf team production with gift exchange. There were 14 of us, 9 guys and 5 girls. Guys set up tents for all of us, which require more physical works, and our girls prepared food. The team production and gift exchange here made all of us better off – we did work that we were better at, and share the food and tent together as a team.

The two example I mentioned above are both engaged in fair gift exchange – people all did similar amount of work, and share gains from the work equally. But team production and gift exchange is not always this fair in reality. For example, in a group project, if one person did most of work for the entire group, it is unfair for the entire group to have the same grade. However, it is hard to measure every single member’s contribution to the team in many situations, and the spread of responsibility can make people in a team less motivated, so teamwork is not always more efficient than individual work.

Manage income risk

I’m a senior majoring in Econ and Psychology, and I will be graduating in summer of 2016. As my graduation is coming close, the first thing I can think about is to start looking for an ideal job as early as possible. Starting job searching early would be helpful for me to manage future income risk, because I would technically have a bigger chance to find a job with the income level I pursue.

Another thing I’ve done to manage income risk is doing a double major. The job market is very competitive comparing to it was in my parents’ generation, the rate of people having a bachelor degree and above is increasing, so I decide to add a second major. I’m expecting that having bachelor degrees of two majors will make me more competitive. Besides, I will have a wider range of jobs to choose from comparing to having only degree of one major, which could help me manage income risk in the future.

As I have a great interest for both Econ and Psychology, especially child psychology, I've interned in different institutions, includes bank, and real estate company, where I can apply economics knowledge at school, and children’s camps, where I will be able to have experience of working with children. I plan to look for jobs in both fields after graduation, if I get offers from jobs of both fields, income will be an important criteria for me to consider which job to take.

It is lucky for me that I haven’t accumulated any debt, so I will have less pressure while I graduate. Many of my friends have gone through job markets, and some of them have started their own business. I think people who’ve gone through job markets are now living a more stable life comparing to those who try to start their own business, and it is partly because there is a smaller income risk for people who work as employers of stable companies. I’ve heard a few people who did not found a satisfying job, and went to graduate school instead. I think it could be a way to manage income risk, as having a higher degree makes the person more competitive in job market.

Post 5 Illinibucks

I think the idea of Illinibucks is interesting, students on campus will be able to value their needs, and pay a certain amount of Illinibucks forn early access of each goods. The candidates can be making an appointment with an academic advisor, getting early access to pick university housig, or using career center for mock interviews.

 Early registration for class can be one of the candidates for Illinibucks, too, and it will be probably be what I will spend a large amount of Illinibucks on. But I believe that pay for priority to register for class would be highly demanded by students, as a result, the cost of it will be incredibly high. I may also pay to get an early adviser's appointment because sometimes advisers may have a very full schedule.

However, the idea of applying Illinibucks on campus may rise many issues, the first one I think of is we will not be able to afford emergencies. For example, if I have an urgent need to use the career center for preparing an interview, I can use Illinibucks to get ahead of line only at a cost of sacrificing other needs, such as registering for class later than I expected, and classes I planned to take may be already full. Another issue is people may find a way to trade Illinibucks, such as use money or other goods for trade. This would cause many unfairness on campus, students from rich family can easily take advantage in this case, and students from average or poor family may face many difficulties in collge.

An additional concern that could be brought by applying Illinibucks is pricing for getting early access for each service. it would be complicated to set a reasonable price for every service, and the price will affect quantity demanded. Both too high and too low price could lead to the failure of the entire system. For example, low price can lead to exceed demand of prior access of certain service, when everyone pays to get ahead, the system could lose meaning; and high pricing will make the college system inefficient because students may be blocked from what they really need, such as accomplish a class for graduation. I talked about unfair trade of Illinibucks in the paragraph above, and I think high price could also be a cause of unfair trade. 

To sum up, I don’t think the idea of Illinibucks is viable based on the current situation, the current first come first serve and priority system generally is generally fairer, and is more efficient than Illinibucks.