Opportunity cost is an important factor in choosing how we as individuals spend our time each day. As most of you know, opportunity cost is whatever you lost or could have done after choosing a certain option. For example, the opportunity cost of me playing video games is studying for Microeconomics. In some cases, this opportunity cost can be very minimal, such as eating a cookie when I could have eaten a salad. However, in other cases, this opportunity cost can be drastic, such as choosing to social in English class instead of working on an essay.
Recently (as in a couple hours ago), a specific English teacher brought up this important idea of opportunity cost. After reading a long rant written by this teacher, I think it is apparent that many students in my class have been partaking in other activites rather than working on their essays in the given class time. Rather than immediately reacting in a negative way towards my teacher, I thought this could be a good learning experience for not only my classmates, but myself as well.
Opportunity cost never changes, but different individuals react differently to whatever activity they must forgo in order to play video games or socialize with friends. In English class, we were given numerous days to peer edit and write our essays. However, this "free time" was spent different for every student. For those students who believe that that opportunity cost of not writing an essay is very minimal, they are the same students who still have not finished their rough draft (the final essay is due on Friday). Yet, for the students who understand the importance of this grade, and they recognize the generous time given to them by our teacher, they are the same students who have completed essays and numerous peer reviews and will receieve a good grade on their papers.
As our essay process comes to a close, I think it is important to realize that while opportunity cost is a specific value, whether that be monetary or tangible, it has different importances to different people. While I might care a lot about that salad I could have eaten, my friend could easily have no emotional response to devouring that cookie.
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I think that it's interesting to apply the concepts of economics to things that are more relatable. This post does a good job of explaining opportunity cost in different ways than we learned in class. While there still is an opportunity cost for doing schoolwork, it is less than the opportunity cost of procrastinating.
ReplyDeleteWhat a relatable post Austin. This opportunity cost dilemma continues in my head as well too, maximizing time on whether I should be working on college apps or school work, and everything else in between. What's more, there are studies diving into how people choose to spend their time and how that is equated to certain monetary values. We can't ever understand the extent to which our time truly is valuable, but at least understanding the extent with which we use our time for certain activities is always crucial.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/02/time-is-money-opportunity-cost-can-help-you-figure-out-how-much-your-time-is-worth.html
I think that I know what you are talking about; I saw the what the teacher posted too. He mentioned how students could use the theory of opportunity cost to make better decisions so that they do not suffer later. Some students may simply not care about if they get a good grade or not, for example if their grade cannot be changed. For these students, there is no opportunity cost for not always working on their paper.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very relatable post as I am in the class and had to make the same decision described in the article. At the start, I would simply put it off as I thought other things were important. However, as it got closer to the deadline, I started prioritizing the essay instead. It would be interesting to see how we could relate this into economics and how firms' opportunity costs change with time.
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