Our everyday operations are based on some principal that we, and the people around us, place similar values to things that are in our lives. The idea that everything has a price couldn't be more correct. For instance, when I'm hungry and I want a candy bar, I will be more willing to purchase that candy bar if I am extremely hungry. The price I pay is no doubt a direct function of how badly I really want it. In college, my value of things, particularly things I didn't necessarily care about before hand, became different. These are a list of things that I can think of that have increased dramatically in value, enough that I felt obliged to write about it.

CLEAN CUPS-especially when living in a dorm that had a sink, the value of a clean cup rose drastically based on the amount of times I had to turn my neck to drink directly out of the sink.

QUARTERS-whether its washing clothes or parking your roommates car that you recently hit a marked police vehicle in, quarters trade value on the college market in my latest review are going for 3 to the dollar, which is drastically lower compared to the rest of society which tends to trade at 4 to the dollar.

CELL PHONE-although this one tends to be pretty obvious, try to not use your cell phone for a day while at school and then again while at home. Tell me your value of this thing is the same and you don't have to worry about me calling you on it, because I'm not your friend, and your lying.

UNDERWEAR and SOCKS- I have nothing to say about this, its just how things are.

LIGHTERS- Smoker or nonsmoker, your value for a lighter increases dramatically during college. You cannot go a semester without someone asking your if you have a light. If it just so happens to be a fine lady, its a good start. Also everyone has lets see what fun things we can do with a lighter night once in college. Its basically a graduation requirement at Illinois. Most importantly, you'll make your pothead friends day at least twice a semester, and you never really can tell how outstandingly more successful he will be then you.

STUPID CLOTHING- If you're already in school, you know that the "enter witty phrase" Bros and "enter slightly provocative on its own but yet when done by sorority girl, could and should be taken to a entirely new level of slutty" Hoes either just happened or is coming up next weekend. You better have something completely stupid to wear, otherwise just don't go. The value of stupid clothes just broke the DOW JONES record

Drop a comment if you can think of other things. I'm sure we could make a pretty exhaustive list.


This post was originally written by Matt Zohn
University of Illinois · Business · 01 Jan 2007