INSPIRING LESSONS: Opportunity Costs, and Creating My Own Business
A senior considers the lessons learned after a semester of education in economics.
Heading into senior year, I found Economics on my list of classes. I thought nothing of it except as a class I needed to take in order to graduate, as well as a class about money. My early dismissal of the course as unimportant couldn’t have turned out to be further from the truth. Thanks to this class, I learned a lot about economics as well as myself.
Costs and Benefits
One lesson we learned was opportunity cost, where you give up something to gain something else. Even before my economics teacher started explaining and talking about the concept, I already knew what it meant despite never knowing or hearing about the term at all. Mrs. Lamoreux used an example that illustrated how if you studied for three hours, those three hours you spent studying would be three hours you’re giving up for sleep or any fun hobbies you might have. I instantly thought about the opportunity cost of doing literally anything but study.
From economics, I learned that nothing is free and that everything has a cost, money or not. The thousands of hours I’ve spent playing video games could have been thousands of hours spent on improving my knowledge or bettering myself and creating good habits, for example. I’ve also learned about credit cards, supply and demand, businesses, and a whole bunch of other things, but the lesson on opportunity cost was the most inspiring. I thought learning about Economics would be boring, but our lesson and project on businesses made me change my mind.
The Final Project
Around October, we learned about businesses and what it takes to start one by creating a business around a certain product, choosing the area your business is located in, determining how much it will cost to get up and running, utilizing social media and websites to advertise, and finding the staff needed to run your business. Econ students were assigned a project to design and present our own personal business with logos and everything. My partner and I chose to make a Boba business, since Boba is something a lot of people love.
I learned that when creating a business, it’s essential to think about problems your business is solving. These problems could be hunger, unemployment, people’s mental state, or even a shortage of something. Our business tackled all four of these problems, with our plan to provide people with Boba and mochi donuts, create jobs for people, make people happy, and provide more Boba to an area that is lacking in Boba shops.
After completing our business idea and laying it all out in Google Slides, we had to take on the dreaded presentation portion of our project. I dislike having to present things because having a whole room of people look at you is just way out of my comfort zone. It’s a skill that I struggle with, but after presenting I learned that it’s not too terrible and it is something I can manage with. Through Economics, I learned about businesses and opportunity costs, how projects can be fun, and how I can make better decisions and better use of my time.
Hilkia Sulistyono is a senior and a member of the Class of 2023.
