Personal Statement

Growing up in the mission district I was surrounded by poverty and working class citizens. I attended elementary school on Treasure Island. Every morning I would ride the school bus with my friends. We would pass by the financial district and I remember wanting to be like the people I saw walking down those streets. I wanted to one day walk around with my business attire and leather black bag. While I observed all these professionals head to work, in the background I would hear my friends talk about their goals. Some of these children aspired to be hair dressers, house cleaners and cooks like their parents. They would completely ignore everything that I would observe. This is when I realized that I wanted to be something different. This was the inception to my motivation.

As the years passed by my motivation grew stronger. It was in the eighth grade when I saw my family try to build their own business. Seeing them struggle financially because of the lack of guidance triggered curiosity in me. That was when I realized that these lower income citizens didn’t have access to the resources necessary to receive financial guidance. I wanted to help out my community and family in the future with their small businesses from going out of business, but at this point I wasn’t quite sure how.

In high school I was a very motivated and ambitious student. I was very opened minded as to what I wanted to study or what I wanted my career to be. I went from volunteering for a plastic surgeon to shadowing a psychologist. I was lucky to have these fortunate opportunities in my life. After graduating high school I decided to enroll myself in a community college to further explore my options. There I took a variety of different classes that helped me see what different careers had to offer.

Throughout my college years I have always had a part- time job. This is where school became challenging for me. As I grew older so did my responsibilities. Learning to budget my finances and time was difficult but a learning experience. About a year in a half ago is when I realized what career path I wanted to go for. I was offered to be administrator assistant for a construction office. Here the controller was able to teach me some accounting and business management skills. This is when I realized that the business/finance field would allow me to help my community in ways I have always wanted to. This journey may have taken me longer to get here. My path probably had a few bumps and turns, but every experience that I have gone through has molded me into who I am now.

How Motivation is Driven by Purpose? Video

This video describes the different ways employers can use incentives to get the actions desired out of their employees. It begins by explaining that the main way incentives are typically used is to provide employers with more monetary promotions the more efficiently they will work. They discovered that this only works with work that is straightforward and hands on, but when it deals with work that requires more cognitive creativity it was completely different. People whose jobs require more creativity and coming up with new ideas or methods need a more "purposeful" incentive. This means people like to feel needed and in control, this encourages people to come into work with a positive and open mindset. This doesn't mean that their paycheck can be low, it just means that besides monetary incentives they need encouragement also.

Interview

For my interview I actually interviewed my mom. Her name is Delmy Cuellar and is a Financial Manager for the City of Richmond. Although I was hesitant on interviewing her because of our close relationship, I then realized that it was rare hearing about work from her. She started off working for a small non-profit organization in San Francisco and later decided to get involved in government work about seven years ago. The only change I have noticed over the years is the stress level compared to the non- profit organization. Working for the government is more demanding and time consuming. The following is the questions I asked and her responses

•  Could you describe one of your typical days?

It usually depends on what tasks or meetings I have pending, but it usually consists of doing analysis, reconciliations, attending meetings, making projections, billing, and answering phones and e-mails.

• 2.      What skills are required in your position day to day basis?

Skills that I practice on a daily basis are multi-tasking, managerial skills, group skills, analysis, and doing presentations.

• 3.      What parts of your job do you find most challenging?

Dealing with government officials.

• 4.      How would you say “Incentives” is involved in your career?

Incentive can be getting good feedback from government officials on the budget that has been proposed, and also getting an award for exceeding on budget excellence from different government association. This type of recognition reflects a good performance on following or having good procedures in place, which in a way creates a good reputation for the people involved in the process. 

• 5.      What kind of incentives is involved in your work environment?

The government has better opportunities to find better positions. Also positions are paid on a set scale.

• 6.      What do you find most enjoyable about your job?

Completing projects; participating with group assignments to analyze cost/ revenue or making projections.

• 7.      Are there negatives to your job?

Sometimes government officials can require a lot of information and details this means that there is in depth analysis required.

               From the experience I have in the field I can see how working for the government can be more difficult than working for a private company. She later explained that the difference between working for a non- profit organization and working for the government is that the numbers are a lot bigger in the government. The responsibilities and the meetings that she has to attend are more intense as well.

               

Introduction

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my Blog. In this blog you will find my research on the relationship between Economics and Incentives. My research question is "How are monetary incentives involved in everyone's every day life decisions?" , this question was inspired after reading the book "Freakonomics". After seeing how in depth Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner researched incentives being involved in our economy, I decided to do some research of my own.

My major is Accounting, in my observation and personal statement you will find how it is that I came to choose this as  my career. You will also find several article analysis on Economics and Incentives. This is just the inception of my research on this topic. You will find through my reflections that it was a difficult process, but definitely a rewarding one.

Thanks,

Gaby

Reflection 2

In the beginning of the semester I felt like I was all over the place. I already had a hard time being creative with my writing and when I found out that we were going to write about our careers I got discouraged. Finding articles in Accounting that were interesting to research was difficult.I kept finding controversial methods on recording data, and because I was still learning the basics of Accounting I found it hard to understand. Even then I almost started doubting my career choice because I couldn't finding anything intriguing to write about.  It wasn't till I started reading "Freakonomics" that I finally realized why I was studying Accounting. 

Reading "Freakonomics" and researching further as to how incentives and economics go hand in hand made me realize why I wanted to study Financial Accounting. Not only did this research help me in writing this blog, but also in my personal life. I felt like I was losing drive on why I was going to school and what I was studying for. This regained my passion for my career. It made me reminisce on what it is that I love about my current job and why I am working hard to go to school. 

Incentives Matter

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2006/Robertsincentives.html

This article basically explains how incentives can be about monetary or not monetary. He explains that in the 1790's England began sending convicts to Australia. The problem was that 13% of them would die because of disease and overcrowding on the boat. They suspected that the captains on the boat would keep the medicine and food provided from the convicts and sold them in Australia in exchange for money instead. They offered these captains money for every convict that made it to Australia and everything changed completely. There were no convicts dying from that point on. An example that they used for non monetary incentives is if they tell people that the Beatles are reuniting and that concert will take place at a small theater in town. The catch is that the concert is free, this then becomes a problem for people. They begin to think of the struggle it will be to get in because of the capacity. The incentive in this case is not high enough because the guarantee of them being able to see the Beatles is low.

This article explains the importance in incentives. They explain that incentives does not only come in the form of money but that there is also psychological incentives. I know that when people tell me that Baskin Robins is giving away free ice cream cones, but that the line is down the block. I would rather pay and wait less, then to wait in a huge line for a long time. Time is money in that case. I could be doing something more useful with that time. In the previous articles all of the incentives had money involved, this one had different scenarios. Although some incentives are not monetary, they still come down to making monetary decisions at the end.

Incentives Cartoon

This cartoon is stating two incentives. The first is that giving people welfare works as an incentive to help people not want to work. Basically instead of helping people out they are giving them a reason to not look for work. On the other side it is say that they also do not agree with giving the wealthy tax breaks, and leaving the less advantaged with more taxes to pay.