Opportunity Cost in Action
If you’re a college or high school student you probably relate to the burden of juggling multiple different responsibilities at once. School, sports, jobs, scholarships, extracurriculars, social life, are just a few things that many students have to balance all at the same time. This can get overwhelming fast and it can easily lead to burnout.
A concept I learned about very early on in my microeconomics class is the concept of opportunity cost. Essentially opportunity cost is what you lose when choosing one decision over another. For example, let's say I want to study but I also want to workout. If I chose to study, the opportunity cost is the muscle gains I would’ve made from the workout. If I choose to workout, the opportunity cost is the studying that would potentially improve my grades.
I’ve surprisingly had to use opportunity cost to make a big decision in my life moving forward. Who would’ve guessed I’m actually using what I’m learning in school outside the classroom, middle school Miguel would’ve never believed me. About a week ago I burnt out big time. Juggling school, the gym, work, content creation, and extracurriculars, caught up to me and hit me like a truck. Last Monday I spent the entire day just bed rotting, refusing to do anything despite creating a whole to-do list for myself the night before. This burn out really took me by surprise and I reached out to some friends and told them about my situation. Many of my friends told me that I’m doing way too much and that it’s important to rest. I agreed with them and I realized changes had to be made or else I’d burn out again.
I began to reflect on all my different responsibilities, prioritizing them from most to least important. After my reflection, I ultimately ended up concluding that my part time job at Panda Express was my least important responsibility. Evaluating my reasons for working there essentially boiled down to money. I wasn’t working at Panda out of necessity, enjoyment, or resume bolstering, it was just for money. I began to start considering whether or not it was smart to continue to pursue my part time job.
Even though Panda was only to make money, money is still a big incentive. But the biggest game changer was my marketing internship with Turbo AI. My internship with Turbo actually pays me decently well. This is where opportunity cost comes in. Was the value of forgoing my job at Panda enough to justify quitting? What are the explicit and implicit costs? Are there benefits that are non-monterey that should be considered?
Wow, I sound like my Canvas assignments. To answer those questions, I do believe it’s a smart decision to forgo my job at Panda Express. The explicit cost of quitting would be my $1000 monthly paycheck I would be giving up. The implicit cost of quitting would be my all you can eat lunch breaks. Overall, what drew me to this conclusion is that I could invest the hours I was working at Panda into my Turbo AI internship or other remote jobs and make the same or even more profit, since Turbo actually pays decent base rates to the point to justify me quitting. Furthermore, the non-monterey values were a big factor as well. I do not enjoy working at Panda Express at all. The work itself isn’t difficult but it is extremely tedious and there is no downtime to relax. Despite only working 4-6 hour shifts, I would be very tired afterwards and that exhaustion would leak into the rest of my day.
Opportunity cost helped me evaluate my situation and helped me realize that the value I was getting from working at Panda was less than the value of not working at Panda. There you have it, this was the exact presentation I gave to convince my parents on why I wanted to quit my part time job at Panda. I haven’t quit yet as of writing this article, but it’s almost a guarantee by the end of November. I’m also planning on picking up another remote marketing UGC job to further supplement my income from quitting Panda. I do realize that I am in a very amazing situation, being able to have a remote part time job as an 18 year old is rare, and I’m extremely grateful for my current circumstances. There is nothing wrong with working a traditional part time job, but it simply isn’t a smart move for me.
