Question

Write an essay (five paragraphs) with the following

You have one semester left to graduate and you have the finances to do a maximum of four courses. Three of the courses are required courses. The last course slot belongs to an elective. You have narrowed down your choices to three electives, all of which are very popular and very useful courses that you are very interested in. Decide on the course you want to take. Then using at least two economic decision-making principles, explain why you are making this choice.

Develop a response that includes examples and evidence to support your ideas, and which clearly communicates the required message to your audience. Organize your response in a clear and logical manner as appropriate for the genre of writing. Use well-structured sentences, audience-appropriate language, and correct conventions of standard American English.

Answer 1

There is only one semester left and I have to decide for an elective amongst the three courses. I have a budget constraint that allows me to do a maximum of four courses, three of which are permanent. So, the problem essentially boils down to a choice problem with the objective of maximizing my welfare, given the budget constraint.

Suppose the three elective courses are A, B, and C. Each of the courses gives me a utility of Ua, Ub, and Uc respectively. Let, the price of each of the courses be Pa, Pb, and Pc respectively and D be the cost of three permanent courses. So, the problem I face here is given as –

Maximise U = f(Ua,Ub,Uc)

Subject to Pa*A+Pb*B+Pc*C + D = M

The opportunity cost of doing one course is the utility that could have been achieved from the other two courses. I would prefer a course with a lower opportunity cost.

Furthermore, expectations about the future and the benefit I would get from selecting the course in future also plays an important role here. Suppose, course A offers me more chances of earning a higher wage in the future while course B is a personal favorite course. Therefore, the decision of taking up the course would depend on the marginal utility of wage or money and the marginal utility of selecting course B.

Suppose course A has the highest potential of getting a job in the labor market in the future with a relatively higher wage. Coming from a lower income background, my marginal utility of money is very high. So, I would opt for course A.