Christina Romer ECON 490 Fall 2017 Blog

As someone who categorizes themselves as relatively risk adverse, many of my past and current decisions have been made looking forward to the future. In this post, I think that my decisions would be best understood in the context of reducing income risk by grouping them into three categories: college, extra-curricular, and financial. The first category of decisions is those that deal directly with college. Thinking back to when I was deciding what school to go to, I had looked at different statistics in terms of post-graduation. I had looked at graduation rates as well as job placement, specifically with my initial program. I had come into college in the Actuarial Science program based on my love of and skills in math. The University of Illinois is an accredited university on the Center of Excellence list for actuaries, which is what employers look for when recruiting students. While I am not in the program anymore, I knew that overall the University of Illinois was highly ranked ...

In reading back through my posts, I would say one of the themes that ties through from all my posts is my ties to the University of Illinois and those experiences. Majority of my posts revolved around student government experiences or the organization’s structure. The posts have helped me to look at my past experiences and be able to reflect on what I learned through those experiences. As a senior, I have been much more reflective as of late on what I have accomplished, learned and how I’ve grown. Student government has taught me about the person I am, but also has helped to guide me on the path of where I want to go in the future. I think that is why many of my posts have been rooted in my student government experience. It has been a big part of my life, and now seeing them through different economic lenses has been rewarding. Aside from addressing the prompts, I think that there are additional ways to tie what I wrote about to the course themes. There are aspects in each anecdot...

If the University of Illinois were to begin implementing a program called Illinibucks to give students the ability to spend this currency to move spots in line, I believe that it would be a well-received program. Based on the premise and goal of this program, I think that there would be multiple categories that this could be used for. As mentioned, registering for classes is done on a priority basis, with top priority given to Honors students and athletes, followed by credit class year. For the students who are not in one of these priority groups, I believe that the idea of utilizing Illinibucks would be very well received. For those who are in large majors or really want to get into a specific class, they might be willing to spend their Illinibucks. Another thing on campus that would be able to utilize the Illinibucks program would be parking. For those that want to park on campus, it is often difficult to find a spot and expensive over the course of the semester. Depending on the qu...