Reflection post

Looking back on blog posts I have written for few weeks, I realized that each post's subjects are different and each of them deal with different subjects. First post was related to transaction costs in organizations while the second was talking about opportunism. The topics to each blog post assignments were not mutually related and I learned different aspects from each topic. For the first post, I wrote about my organization experiences being related to transaction costs by realizing the importance of interview process and encouraging people to secure funds for the RSO. Followed by the first post, I wrote about dilemma I faced while I was applying for colleges. I was given an offer of scholarship from certain college, but I wanted to go to U of I to have better statistics program, which is better outcome for me. In this example, I faced transaction costs in choosing which college to attend, but in another sense, it is a form of opportunism because I didn't choose college that offered me scholarship since it didn't have better statistic program than U of I. 

When I talked about my experience in organization, there was several problems to keep running RSO and all members had to deal with it. I think this is related to a form of coordination costs and opportunism because all members worked hard, dedicated their times, and tried to brainstorm how to make people feel comfortable about our RSO. If it is a group project that they did not care that much, they would not work so hard to maintain and RSO.  However, because it was very important and a priority in their school life (even social life), people worked hard to keep continue Kojobs. It can be seen as opportunistic behavior. Along with that, Kojobs is the organization for all members, not certain members. So, all members cooperate and tried to recruit many people and helped to earn some funds. It is not one's job to work hard to continue Kojobs, and I can see that this example is related to coordination costs in some sense.

Compared to the time when I wrote the first post, I feel confident in what I am supposed to write about. In the beginning of class, I had a hard time to think about experience and relate to the concepts that I learned in class. I personally think that I gained an ability to think in depth and write in various aspects. Also, I learned that writing a blog is a good way to look back what I have written and how much I was developed. It is a great way to help me write and think in innovative way. Also it is a great work to review what I have learned in class and apply in real life experience.

If I am in the position of writing the prompt, I would love to make the prompt clear and applicable to real life situations. I know the prompts we have given are very applicable to my experience and it helped me to understand the concept I learned. However, there were some points that I had a hard time to understand what I should write about and the purpose of the prompts. If there is a good example of relating the concept and real-life experience, it would help students to understand better on what they should write on.

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanOctober 13, 2019 at 1:36 PM

    Reading your post, I would encourage you to go back and review the definitions of terms and see if you have a firm grasp of them or if you need to reconsider them. For example, you talked about attending the U of I as in some way opportunistic, since you turned down the scholarship you were offered elsewhere. Who was harmed by this decision? If nobody was harmed, then it is not a good example of being opportunistic. If it was your parents who were harmed, because they are the ones who are paying your tuition in college, that should have been brought out further.

    I believe there are two ways to think about this. One is from the perspective of lifetime earnings. If the statistics you take at the U of I lands you a good job after graduation, then the higher tuition will eventually be paid for by the increase in earnings that you will achieve. If so, you can pay back your parents later in life when you are more financially secure. Indeed, that might be one reason why they would pay for your college now. The other way to think about this is if your parents are "liquidity constrained." This means they had to borrow to pay for your college and reduce their own consumption accordingly. That could be seen as a harm at present. They might still be willing to sacrifice for you, but they would have sacrificed less had you attended a different school where you got a scholarship.

    If this is what you meant, then you should have elaborated on it. I can't tell from reading what you wrote whether that is what you had in mind or not. So one of the things to work on in future posts, is to get the technical ideas down well and then elaborate on them with good examples.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simon Kuznets Econ 490 fall 2019October 13, 2019 at 6:58 PM

      Yes, I read my post of opportunism and understood what opportunism is now. I should have not used that example and didn't think that was a good example. For future posts, I will get the idea what the prompt is saying and elaborate with good examples!

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