Day one as a second-semester senior, I strutted into Mr. Conlon’s classroom with a calm, cool, and collected small smile. I had survived Physics, relished in Elections 2024, and navigated the labyrinth of Parker’s English electives—I figured economics would be just another History course squeezed into my schedule. Supply and demand? Interest rates? GDP? Easy. But within the first five minutes, Mr. Conlon shattered my delusion.
“Everything in life is about trade-offs,” he declared, scrawling bullet points onto the chalkboard. “Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly making choices, allocating your time, money, and energy to maximize your utility.”
That was the moment I realized this class wasn’t going to teach me about graphs and numbers. It was going to teach me about life.
Within the first few weeks, I learned that economics isn’t just a subject—it’s a reality check. Many Parker students spend money incessantly, often without a second thought. We Venmo each other for overpriced oat milk lattes, drop $15 on Sweetgreen salads, and Uber downtown instead of taking the train. But how often do we actually think about why we spend the way that we do? Does it cross our minds as to what else we could be doing with that money?
Take a typical Parker lunch break. When you walk down Clark Street you’ll see students swiping their cards at Angry Octopus, Starbucks, Chipotle, venues where prices are significantly marked-up compared to making sack lunches at home. So why do we choose convenience over cost-efficiency? Because our time is limited, and our value calculator is skewed. We weigh the benefits of a faster, more enjoyable, trending meal over the extra money spent. That, I learned in econ, is called an economic trade-off.
Just look at the way we spend on trends. One month, half the senior class is wearing Tasmanian Uggs, and the next, everyone’s carrying a Longchamp tote. Do we actually prefer these things, or are we efficiently responding to trend curves shaped by social exposure? Supply and demand isn’t just some graph in a textbook—it’s a real-life phenomenon reflected in the skyrocketed resale prices for Stanley Cups the moment they sell out at Target. It’s why Lollapalooza tickets you buy in March are cheaper than the same tickets in July.
And beyond our own spending habits, economics reveals how bigger systems shape the retail world we move through, revealing how hot Taylor Swift tickets can cost more than someone’s mortgage payments. Why is inflation making everything from tuition to eggs more expensive? Which forces are at play when Parker sets tuition hyper-increases each year? The answers to these questions and patterns aren’t just academic, rather they affect us and we affect them every single time we transact.
And that is why Parker students should take econ. It’s not just another elective. It’s a class that forces students to examine the innumerable transactional choices we make, the costs we conveniently ignore, and the unseen forces that persuade the world trends around us.
In just a few months, most of the seniors will be making serious financial decisions; understanding opportunity cost, inflation, and market forces won’t only be useful, but rather essential for surviving adulthood debt-free. Economics helps to equip us with the tools needed to make informed financial choices, whether it’s negotiating a salary, investing informedly, or simply thinking deeper than the latest $50 water bottle. Walking across the graduation stage without these lessons isn’t only a missed opportunity, it’s a disadvantage in flowing through the real world with financial fluency. We should all graduate speaking a language without debt.
