Critiques and Reviews

I think in general taking an economics course that is so small was a great challenge. Not many economics courses are offered where we can have such small discussions and this was definitely my first take at it. It is so different with it being an economics course because we have the opportunity to really get critiques not only from the professor but also from our peers in class. Many of the times, in discussion classes I take a back seat because I am not always comfortable speaking or voicing my opinions and sharing my experiences with the rest of the class. However, having such a small class gave me the opportunity to relate myself more closely with the topics being covered so that I would not feel this way.

Another great thing about the structure of this class is that I think I have actually gained something out of this class. For the most part, in many economics courses I will study for an exam and then forget 80% of the material from the course after taking it. However, I do feel that it is different this time only because with every lecture it was tied to things I could relate to and the professors experiences. Having class be run that way really allowed me to better understand a lot of the material rather than just being tested on it where it would only have been memorized. I think one of my favorite topics was when we talked about having “Illini Bucks” because there were so many different aspects one had to take into consideration for a change such as that (and it is something that could possibly happen). I think that the presentations in class were also a good way to encourage discussion while at the same time allow us to get innovative and think of our own experiences to relate to. I really enjoyed working on the presentations and having the groups be picked randomly like they were in the very beginning. I think that my group overall worked well together and each time we met to work on the presentations we all found ways to engage in great conversations about the topics being covered. All in all I really did enjoy this course and I learned a lot about the internal structures and how economics is a key player in all of this. Having this be my first economics course that is so small in size, I think I really enjoyed it and benefited a lot from taking this course. 

Conflicts of Interest

I think that there are many instances where we find ourselves as students of the university not seeing eye to eye with the way things are structured administratively with the University. For instance, one example of this was my freshman year with the TA’s on campus who essentially were graduate students here at the University. I particularly remember my chemistry 102 TA mentioning that because she is a TA for the class she did not have to pay tuition and on top of that she was still getting paid a small salary. However, towards the end of the semester (first semester freshman year) I remember her telling all of us to come support her in a protest against the University because they were no longer pay for their tuitions and cut their salary by a good amount. I remember right outside of Henry Administrative building having TA’s protest against this for almost a week after. This issue was a very big deal because graduate students already are in or can be in a lot of debt from their undergraduate years and now having to only add to that debt while in graduate school.  On top of cutting paying for tuitions the University wanted to lower the pay for the TA’s. It is so interesting to see this in action because in my eyes I completely see why people were upset with this. If anything I do not think that the University should have lowered wages if they were planning on cutting tuitions. In this case particularly the structure favored administration because the school had to make budget changes and cuts due to funding. It just bothers me when the school could be paying better salaries to TA’s if not pay for their tuition because they are the ones who are educating the students here on campus. They dedicate time to have discussions, and further explain and provide guidance to what professors teach us which in many cases is a great help to succeed in certain courses. However, in stead administration finds the need to be paying or increasing salaries and budgets for our athletic teams. By no means do I think college sports does not deserve attention but I do think that the way administration sometimes budgets is not in the best interest for all the students but instead in the interest of the University image.

Now being a senior and having roommates who are TAs for the same class, they themselves complain about how the salary compensation is so low compared to the number of hours they put in teaching the discussion courses and grading their quizzes and coming up with their quizzes and etc. It is hard to say how this could be restructured to favor the students because it really just depends on the administration and where they want to allocate their money, however, I do think that in instances such as this, administration needs to take another look at what really is important and beneficial to everyone.

Being a Leader

One situation where I was able to empower somebody else in a positive way was very recently. Serving on the executive board for the Indian Student Association (ISA) for the past two years, one of my committee chair members whom I have had the opportunity to work with for the past two years came to me with advice. With new executive board elections coming up right around the corner she asked me about the responsibilities of being Internal Vice President and about exactly what the position entailed. After speaking  with her, she was convinced that this was the position for her. Thus, she ran for elections and was able to be elected into the position of Internal Vice president for the upcoming school year. However, only this week did I find out that she not only ran for Internal Vice President for our organization but also just won an executive position in her sorority, Not only that, but with her going into her junior year as a pre-medicine major I wanted her to fully understand what it would require of her to succeed at both positions, and not ruin her GPA in school. It was so hard to talk to her about this because is one of those individuals who likes to take things into their own hands and do everything and anything they possibly can. I met with her several times after finding our she had gotten both positions to talk to her about the pro’s and con’s about both position and how it would pay into effect with her academics next year. Her having to take her MCATS the following year while serving on two executive boards, and taking 21 credit hours was just not going to be an option for her. There was no way she would be sane to do all this, and still have time to serve as a board member in three other pre-health organizations. As a sophomore she felt that she could handle all this. However, after sitting through many conversations and taking her to specifically talk to other students who were taking their MCATS I helped guide her into not sacrificing her school to serve on so many executive boards. I recommended to her that she should essentially pick between one or the other for her sanity and for her future success. In this case, she herself finally realized that giving up either the position with her sorority or ISA was the right thing to do. Thus, after many conversations, me creating pro-con lists and mini-presentations, and having her meet with individuals in her career path, she made the smart choice of dropping out as Internal Vice President from ISA. She knew that she wouldn’t have been able to give it her 100% at the end of the day and she realized that there were other people who would have been able to, even though she is more than qualified for the position. I am glad that I was able to share my experiences with her, while at the same time have her understand the realistic views on some of her decisions for her well being. I think that by stepping up and being that person for her to talk to, ad giving her guidance allowed her to make the right move. If I hadn’t done this now, she may have felt the pressures next year while serving on the board and not been able to do the best job she could and burn herself out. In the end, talking with her recently I do think that she is very happy with her decision and she knows that it is only going to make a positive impact come second semester next year.

Sources of Power

One relationship that I have had in the past would be with my teacher. I feel that many times none the less we find ourselves in situations where students do hold some power, especially in high school classrooms. In particular I do remember that in my AP Government class the teacher had basically given a majority of the power to the students. His main objective for us was that at the end of the year we would all choose to take the AP exam on our own because we felt so confident in the material. Thus, I remember in particular that during the first week of class he had all of us students write up the syllabus; adding in exams, quizzes, presentations, and two topics that should be covered during the year. This alone seemed like a lot of power for high school students at the time. However looking back on the situation it is interesting to see how little power did have. He had given us a strict number of quizzes, tests and presentations to insert into the syllabus. Therefore it is interesting because in a way we were given power to accommodate to our own schedules on when we wanted to have these things, but at the same time the power was very limited because we were not given full authority or control over what we wanted on the syllabus. It was also very interesting because every group that was assigned to create this syllabus still did not always get what they wanted because once we had filled out when we wanted to do things, the teacher had taken dates in the similar time frame and modified the due dates for each of the assignments.

Another thing that really sticks out to me in this situation is the distribution of power. Each group was given the ability to make changes and do what they wanted to, however, the ultimate source of power was still held by the professor. We as students were able to change the outcome of when we wanted to have certain things during the upcoming year, but in the end we also would ultimately be the ones deciding whether or not we wanted to take the AP exam at the end of the day. This distribution of power in a way had a shift over the course of the year. Although he may have accommodated to our schedules and we may have had the opportunity to learn everything in a timely fashion to feel confident to take the AP exam at the end of the year, we as students were the ones who would choose whether we would sit for the exam or not. Even if we were prepared, we had the ability to not take the exam. It was never made a requirement from the beginning; thus, we at the end of the day had a lot of say in the class because the whole purpose of taking an AP course is to sit for the exam, regardless of the structure of the class. I think that in the end our source of power came from the teacher, however over the course of the year, the power was switched to us, because the more students who took the test the better the professor looked in the eyes of the board of education and the school, and ultimately that decision was up to the students. 

Parallel Roles

Interning over the past three summers of college has really given me perspective on different situations that coworkers often encounter with one another when working together. From working on teams or just interacting with the people in the cubicles around you, one easily realizes the general fact that people are different and similar in many ways. It is these differences and similarities that really create positive or negative interactions with one another. For instance, when working at a firm this past summer, I encountered many positive interactions with my coworkers. My very first day on the internship, right after meeting my boss, I was informed that he was leaving for a international business trip for the next three weeks. Being only my first day, I had no idea of what was required of me, what types of projects I would be working on and who I could go to for assistance during his travels. My boss quickly introduced me to others that worked in the same division as me, handed me a list of projects I would be working on while he was away (which included a brief overview) and handed me several books telling me to learn about the business. Being completely overwhelmed and confused many of my coworkers stepped in to help me out. They included me on trainings to help me understand what the division did and allowed me to sit in on higher executive meetings. They also guided me to the right people when I was working on certain projects so I could have resources. I think one of the biggest reasons for this is not only their kind personalities but also because of their dedication to their work. Many of the people I worked with had been with the company for over 10 years. They had dedicated a lot of time to their jobs and the company and had gathered a lot of experience along the way. This dedication to their job is what really lead them to help me out.

On the contrary, I have also had bad interactions with coworkers at another internship. Two summers ago while working, a majority of my projects were team based. Not only would I be working with associates who had been with the company for years but also with my fellow interns. Working with interns in this situation was rather difficult while working on projects only because everyone was trying to do everything. To be more specific, at the end of our internship at KPMG we had to do a final presentation with our fellow interns on our overall experiences and describe some of our projects to top executives from the company.  While trying to work in a group with individuals who essentially are competing with one another to make the best impression was very difficult. I think that in this particular instance, personalities played a huge role in the functionality of our group. We had no direction with the presentation because everyone had different ideas and no one wanted to step up to the plate to organize it because individual sacrfices would have had to be made. Because of this, in the end our presentation unfortunately was not as smooth as it could have been if we all had evenly distributed our work and worked together as a team. 

Cooperative Activity

I think the example given with the rope and marbles from the first article is very interesting. I feel like we have seen this “finders-keepers” situation since we all were young children. In fact, it happens even today as we are older. Just the other day, I was walking around my friend’s house and my friend found a bracelet. It wasn’t their mothers or her younger sisters, but the second the younger sister said she wanted it, the older sister said she found it so she got to keep it. This is just one of many daily examples that happens every day between siblings. This instance also goes back to being a good citizen. Knowing it was not hers, she still went ahead and kept the bracelet because she wanted to keep it. Instead, she could have called a few folks who had been in their house for the past few days, as it could have been a very important bracelet to the person who lost it. I think that the article made a very good point by stating that more often than not, choose to ignore the sharing button to make circumstances fair. I think especially in an economy like ours, there is less incentive for one to want to share because this country is based on the idea of making it rich- the land of opportunity and success. It is encouraged for individuals to strive and work harder to make greater profits for themselves rather than everyone living in a fair country with equal amounts of money and labor.

However, there are still instances where cooperation leads to sharing. This happens all the time in the classroom between students and their class notes. During exam time many students get nervous and start to second guess their notes. Therefore, a lot of students collaborate with one another because they both have done the same amount of note taking just possibly in different styles. Thus, one may have picked up on something another classmate had not. This is why during exam time, many students will work together and share their notes and cooperate with one another to be able to collectively have the best notes compiled together to study. However in many cases students don’t always include certain students in this because they know that they have not put in as much effort as everyone else (not going to class as much, not taking good notes, etc…) Many factors come into play with situations like this. Unfortunately, a problem with this now becomes one of judgement. To one person it may seem as if they are putting in all their effort where another student may see it as no effort as all. Who gets to decide if this system is fair or not? In addition, this can be applied to a bad habit. One may have a bad habit of not writing everything down but remembering it in their mind , thus, what may look like less effort to another because of blank pages may be because they are better at explaining it then writing it down. They can still contribute the same amount of information but in this case in a different way. 

Actions over Words

It is interesting to have this question up this week with Valentine’s Day recently passing us. I think that in many different cases we always seem to look for the little things in any given situation. For instance, with Valentine’s Day we see how that saying really is true. In many relationships girls expect their significant others to do little things to show them that they care. For instance on Valentine’s Day many girls would want their boyfriends, or husbands to buy them flowers or chocolate to show them that they love them. If not materialistic gifts, people tend to do other smaller things or gestures to indirectly make this statement of loving another. One can sometimes know how much someone loves you just by realizing the “look” they get from another person. The indirect communication from ones eyes can say more than actually having to speak words. Sometimes it’s even doing things like taking care of the children for a night so the wife or husband can go out with their friends. Or even something special that the two of you can share such as breakfast in bed, or going on a date night.

Another example of this outside of relationships can be with the use of drugs. For the past two winter breaks I have been volunteering at a drug and abuse center where I worked with individuals by spending time with them at the rehab center. Here I was able to pick up on the smaller signals that were presented to me by some of these patients. This also happens with alcohol abuse. In many instances many alcoholics refuse to believe that they are addicted to the substance. Thus, the first sign is that of denial. Individuals refuse to believe they have a problem, ad even when families notice a change in behavior they help make them see their changes to make them more apparent. Once people are able to see that they are having problems most will agree to make commitments to change and quit by going to rehab. However, just saying they will go and actually going does not always mean that they will completely give up this addiction. In many cases it can be very easy for one to go to rehab, come out clean and then a few months later get back in to their old habits.

Thus, I definitely think that actions speak much louder than words only because people can say a lot of things but they don’t always have to mean them. This happens all the time when people say one thing to someone and talk behind their backs to someone else. People need to be shown that they are loved and cared for which is why the role of nurture plays a significant role in everyone’s life.