Transaction Costs
Throughout college I have worked with Rotex. Rotex is a organization run by post-exchange students that went through Rotary Youth Exchange. Rotex helps inbound students (exchange students that are spending a year in the United States of America), Outbound students (exchange students leaving the country), and the Rotary Youth Exchange program. Any student that was an exchange student can join, and while Rotex does not kick any one out most leave once they graduate college. This leads to a constant turn over of leadership, people, and ideas in the organization.
This means that Rotex as a whole work as a buffer for the Rotary Youth Exchange. Members of Rotary may have never been an exchange students and there are very few of them that are younger than 50. This creates a large disconnect from students who are about to enter into a very different situation. Rotex has better understanding of the exchange students in almost every way. They have been through similar situations, and there is a very good chance that at least one member of Rotex has lived in any country in question.
I think it is also important to the note the constant turn over that happens throughout the organization. While there are a few people who stay, most leave after college. This means that every four years the organization is nearly completely restaffed. This results in a constantly changing group of ideas and skill set. This is important for how the organization function. Rotex is meant to help exchange students to adjust to a new and challenging environment. The more similar student are to Rotex member makes this easier and more effective.
Transaction costs are the cost associated with exchange of goods or services and incurred in overcoming market imperfections. In short they seek to make exchanges more effective. The most obvious transaction costs that I have in my school work is for Aplia and other similar sites. These are sites that are used for class work, and similar to compass. They normally come with a new book. This cost forces the students to buy a new book. With out the codes students are not able to do the homework and are thus unable to get the credit for the class, making it harder to get a high grade. That said these programs are normally specialized, making it easy to do advanced mathematics (calculus) or statistics on a computer. These programs also have collect resources for helping students. In my experience many transaction costs that I have found throughout college are similar to this. They are often times unavoidable but are very helpful.
“Transaction Cost.” Business Dictionary, Business Dictionary, 2017.
This means that Rotex as a whole work as a buffer for the Rotary Youth Exchange. Members of Rotary may have never been an exchange students and there are very few of them that are younger than 50. This creates a large disconnect from students who are about to enter into a very different situation. Rotex has better understanding of the exchange students in almost every way. They have been through similar situations, and there is a very good chance that at least one member of Rotex has lived in any country in question.
I think it is also important to the note the constant turn over that happens throughout the organization. While there are a few people who stay, most leave after college. This means that every four years the organization is nearly completely restaffed. This results in a constantly changing group of ideas and skill set. This is important for how the organization function. Rotex is meant to help exchange students to adjust to a new and challenging environment. The more similar student are to Rotex member makes this easier and more effective.
Transaction costs are the cost associated with exchange of goods or services and incurred in overcoming market imperfections. In short they seek to make exchanges more effective. The most obvious transaction costs that I have in my school work is for Aplia and other similar sites. These are sites that are used for class work, and similar to compass. They normally come with a new book. This cost forces the students to buy a new book. With out the codes students are not able to do the homework and are thus unable to get the credit for the class, making it harder to get a high grade. That said these programs are normally specialized, making it easy to do advanced mathematics (calculus) or statistics on a computer. These programs also have collect resources for helping students. In my experience many transaction costs that I have found throughout college are similar to this. They are often times unavoidable but are very helpful.
“Transaction Cost.” Business Dictionary, Business Dictionary, 2017.
You wrote this early. I had planned to cover transaction costs on Tuesday. We'll begin to discuss them in class today. You really need to see how they are defined in our course to get a sense of what they are about.
ReplyDeleteThere is much detail that you could have given in this post that you didn't supply. I will try to illustrate in what follows.
Were you an exchange student? If so, where did you do that? Could you give a bit about that experience itself? Then you might have said a bit about how how Rotex prepared you for the experience. Was that actually helpful? Did you meet any other exchange students who weren't associated with Rotex? Were you at an advantage over them? If so, how did that manifest?
All the above is meant to get at what happened. As a reader who wasn't there, I don't know these things. You have to supply enough description so I can understand what was going on.
Then, if you've hosted international exchange students at the U of I, or otherwise interacted with them, you might go through the same type of description, but now as a host. Does Rotex prepare you for this in some way? How does that happen?
You might also talk about why you became a member of Rotex. Were you encouraged to do that by somebody? Likewise, have you recruited more junior students than you to follow in your footsteps? You talked about the turnover in Rotex. It is understandable why students who graduate would no longer participate. But it is harder to understand why students would become members to begin with.
Finally, it seems Rotary provides some umbrella for Rotex. But I didn't understand at all why that is or what benefit the umbrella provides. Would two entirely separate organizations work just as well?
I was an exchange student. I lived in a city called Belo Horizonte, which is in the middle of Brazil. It is a city of about 3 million people. I lived with two families over the course of 11 months, neither of whom spoke English. I became a part of each family, I have kept in touch with both families and still consider both sets of host parents to be parents of mine. For 8 months, I went to a business school that was taught in Portuguese, and had about 150 students total. In the other 3 months, I spent most of my time traveling with 5-10 other exchange students.
DeleteThe year before I left Rotary and Rotex hosted numerous events. Rotary oversaw our introduction to the rules and their expectations for the exchange students in their program. This let Rotex take a more relaxed approach. They would take us on trips that last the entire weekend. Instead of focusing on rules and expectations they talked about their past exchanges and gave advice as to what worked for them and what did not. Members of Rotex worked to ensure those going on exchange were prepared for the wholly unique experience, and were equipped to take advantage of the opportunity that the exchange provided. I did not realize how valuable those meetings were until I could compare myself with exchange student that were not associated with Rotex. In general exchange student that had worked with Rotex were quicker to integrate themselves into the culture of their host country. This resulted in learning the host country's language fast, as well as making friends with locals. By being able to adapt to a countries culture faster, exchange students can function, and take advantage of the experience. Rotex was instrumental is preparing me to be able to do this.
Rotary is set up so that its exchange students live with families in the host country. Which means, I did not host international exchange students while at college. The year before I left on my own exchange my family did host a girl from Brazil. Her experiences were very similar to mine. Both roommates I have lived with in apartments have been international students. One was from Singapore and the other from the United Kingdoms. I have also made friends with numerous exchange students in college. In general, the exchange and international students have met have had different experiences to my own. When I was an exchange student it was expect that, I would become a part of the family that I was living with. I did chores, participated in family events such as holidays, and was wholly “adopted” by each host family. Most exchange students to Illinois are much more independent, at most they live in university housing. Other than that, they are free to interact with whomever they choose.
Every exchange student that I have met has raved about their experiences during their exchange. There also tend to be a comradery between these students. There are core experiences that every exchange student share. This is the main reason that people join Rotex. Rotex allows ex-exchange students to remain in contact with people who have been on exchange, while also working with future exchange students. Rotex does not have strict guideline on what you are supposed to do. Your only role in Rotex is simply to help exchange students. Rotex is not dictating rules or dealing out punishments. We are there to talk, give advice, and make current exchanges better. This freedom and loose allows for each member of Rotex to do what they enjoy. I tend to focus on Chicago, showing students different neighborhood, talking about the architecture, and trying to get everyone to each a Chicago dog. Other members are free to share what they want. People join Rotex as a way of preserving their exchange, living vicariously through current exchange students, while also able to help and better the exchange of other students.
DeleteRotary has one of the largest exchange networks in the world. Each year they send over 9,000 students across the globe. This has led to a quagmire of organization which tend to result in a large, unwieldy mess. Most Rotary meeting for exchange students spend most their time, listing rules and procedure. When I was an exchange student I sat through four separate meetings talking about visas and airplane tickets, twice in the United States and twice in Brazil. Rotex is meant as a sort of bridge. Every meeting that Rotary hosted Rotex would have an hour or three in which they framed the discussion differently. By necessity Rotary talked about everything on a macroscale. Rotex could add a personal touch to the events. Rotex talked about their own experience and what it was like as an exchange student. In return Rotary fund, most of Rotex’s events, helps with any problems that they may have, and it provides the impetus for the exchange program.