Team Production

In my experience, team production undeniably creates an intangible bond amongst those who work for the reward, even if it’s not evenly distributed. As is echoed in the New York Times article, I’ve seen in my experience that there absolutely is an unspoken bond amongst the workers, a bond that prioritizes egalitarianism over materialistic gain. My belief is that this stems from a feeling that comes from achievement, a feeling that one gets when something is earned. While someone can recognize things that they earn themselves, it appears that it comes natural for someone to recognize things earned by others, as long as the struggle is mutual. I’m confident of this because of my experience as a camp counselor. Every day the counselors and I work hard to achieve fundamental tasks, like feeding children and making fires. The heavy effort we all put into this work compared with the little reward we got in return would suggest that everyone should be greedy to earn the as much as they could. In fact, the opposite was true. Our mutual struggle drove us to share what we earned and enjoy it together. For lack of better words, it simply felt right. At camp, we used our little rewards to pool together everything together and throw bonfires, dinners and other group events. In the NYT article, the balls given by the rope-bearing machine were pooled together and shared. This is a theme that I believe goes beyond the stigma of individual materialism and draws at the common principles and values that truly make us human.

Managing the Future

As a college student, “future” is a finite term with a vague definition- the variability of our future and the risk we associate to it is a subject that accounts for a significant portion of stress seen on campus. Whether it is income, respectability or relationship goals, there are standards everyone sets, strives to attain and dreads falling short of. Hedging this risk therefore is an important facet of the collegiate lifestyle and one that ultimately relies on each and every decision made, big or small, throughout the years spent on campus. Taking a look at managing risk, there are no benchmarks for an “acceptable” amount. Risk is only one half the equation. The other half, the justification and exigency for risk, is the reward one could achieve. To put risk in perspective, one needs to compare it to reward. Like altering a denominator and numerator in a fraction equating to a constant value, risk and reward share a direct relationship and must therefore be looked at through a relative mindset. The success and strategy in managing risk is contingent on the student who desires the reward. Personally, I have lofty visions of success and have a tendency to willingly accept considerable risk to achieve my goals. As a goal-oriented person, the risk I incur is high in sheer size but low relative to the trajectory I strive to put myself on. Mindful of the fact that every decision made on college affects this trajectory, there are methods I use to limit the risk incurred. 

First and foremost, nothing is truly achievable without effort. Effort is one of the reasons behind every accomplishment and is a term without bound: one can never try too much. Effort then is the old-fashioned way of hedging risk. The more someone works towards their goals, the greater the chance one has at success. It’s hard to deny that. The greater the chance someone has at success, the less is the risk incurred to achieve it. Simply walking away from each and every instance in life knowing that I tried-I truly tried- is success in and of itself. Following effort, each victory is a justified and steady step towards larger goals. Each defeat is a lesson. 

Most people’s success deals with materialistic gain: money, power, prestige, etc. It almost goes without saying that the easiest path to achieving these is through a good job. Good jobs are attained at difficulty (and at great risk), even if the utmost amount of effort is given. Therefore there are a few unique steps I have learned to take in order to reduce this risk and increase my chance of attaining a respectable job. Networking, gaining relevant experience and learning soft skills are three cornerstone facets of this. 

Networking, the construction and maintenance of a hopefully expansive web of people, is incredibly important in this day and age. Professionals who have the ability to offer jobs to others tend to do so for people who they trust will success. As a student, it’s crucial to convince the recruiter that you are the one who can fill those shoes. Networking doesn’t do the convincing, but it does put in contact with the people you have to convince. That’s half of the battle.

Gaining relevant experience is in many ways a byproduct of effort. I’ve learned that in order to make myself marketable to those who can put me in my dream job, I need to have the tools (and not just the talk) to succeed once I’m there. It’s important and recruiters know it. Internships, jobs, classes, extracurricular activities and more can suffice as a means of gaining relevant experience. 

Soft skills go hand in hand with relative experience and networking. Typically when someone is successful at two of these three facets, they’re successful at the third. The ability to lead, mentor, communicate and inspire is ultimately the bare bones of one’s potential. Technical skills can be learned but the best leaders are born and trained. I’ve learned to make myself marketable by training myself; I strive to involve myself with as many opportunities on campus as possible with the end-goal of interacting with as many people as I can. The ability to communicate is one that is relevant and important regardless of the job you dream of. 

Ultimately, these three intertwined skills make up a big picture of success and one’s ability to achieve it. The risk that is incurred in the strife every college student knows all-to-well is hedged by effort and is relative to the degree of success you know you deserve. 

Illinibucks

I think this idea of having illinibucks is very interesting. I believe it would teach students a way of dealing with an amount of capital (illinibucks in this case) and allocating it towards what their top priorities are.

Aside from the obvious one of students using these illinibucks to get first pick when it comes to classes and certain professors (I myself have never had a problem getting into the classes I wanted, I feel that the university has a very wide variety of choices of classes), I think that these illinibucks could be used for things such as exam and final times.

Taking 18 credit hours and having a part time job as a waiter, this idea of illinibucks being used for scheduling of exams and finals would come in great handy.  No one likes being suck here at the end of fall semester because their exam is in the very last time slot while everyone else heads home or to some tropical destination halfway across the world.  Illinibucks would be used to get an earlier time slot when it came to exams and finals.  Aside from just wanting to leave school earlier, going back to this idea of using illinibucks to schedule exams, finals, or even homework, to be at different times to fit the schedules of many students who work and do not simply have only school to worry about.

Another area where this would come in great help would be when there is a family emergency, causing the student to have to go home abruptly.  Instead of going through the dean and getting it all sorted out that way, you could use your illinibucks to be excused.  Yes, there may not always be truth to these "family emergencies," but thats the beauty of this system, it gives students the freedom to allocate their illinibucks wherever that they feel is needed.  Is it ethical? Maybe? You tell me.

And not to say that a student would be able to use these illinibucks a lot to get out of exams or homework if there were to be an emergency, I'd imagine that these sorts of things would require a lot of illinibucks.  In my eyes, you would have enough illinibucks to spend on two major instances a semester, along with other things such as getting to the front of the line at the bookstore or maybe even using them on Jamba at the union.  But if a student were to spend their illinibucks on lots of little things, they obviously would not have the capital to get out of an exam or big homework assignment if there were to be an emergency.

I believe that this would teach students a little how to budget for things in the future when they are out of the house and on their own, having to pay for rent, bills, and the occasional emergency.  These illinibucks could be a "test" run for real life.  Not saying things like getting to the front of the line at the bookstore, switching exam times around or having to go home for family emergencies are not important, but certainly not as serious as real life situations.