Economics of Love

No No, this isn't going to be a post filled with the details of any one of the many areas that "family economists" (read: super super macro economists) have developed some theory to describe things that should otherwise be obvious.

This is a post about what will almost certainly be one of the oddest experiences of my academic career. The first clue is that this is an Honors Seminar, meaning it will deal with academic content not normally covered in the classroom. That said, the class also features a professor I know fairly well, a room full of student that are not econ majors (everything from health science to music), and at least one girl that things love and her fiance are the be all end alls of the world. In fifteen minutes this girl managed to mention her boyfriend 3 times. Kill me.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to 1. tell you that this class is going to be ..... interesting. The second, more important purpose of this post is to talk about an academic complaint: beating a dead horse.

I love class participation. I think that students learn better when they interact, ask questions, and push theories (by asking questions). This is one of the reasons I love economics, it is an entire field of study aimed at building up a theory then trying to push it until it breaks. This said, DO NOT CONSTANTLY REFER TO THE SAME EXAMPLE OR THOUGHT OVER AND OVER. Am I mostly annoyed in the case because it is a girl constantly gushing about her boyfriend? Yes, definately. Would I still be annoyed if it was a guy constantly reasserting his theory of consumption in any possible avenue? Definately.

Here is a word of advice: If you find yourself refering to the same thing (that isn't part of the text material) three times in three different interactions with the group, you are starting to get on my nerves. If it is a personal life example, then I am REALLY REALLY pissed off. If you bring it up on more than two days, shut up, keep your hand down and sit quiet.

That class will be very interesting and thankfully, I believe very easy. Our final project is to examine economic choices related to emotions in a movie. I think I am going to stick with my legal obsession and use Paper Chase as my movie: Lots of cost benefit analysis there, espcially decisions under time constraints.