First Week Fun! Econ Students Learn Number Of Quarters In A Dollar

GOLDWIN SMITH HALL—Future captains of industry in discussion section 312 of ECON 1110 made massive academic headway last week after finally learning the value of a quarter. The super sleuths were finally able to ‘make cents’ out of the cryptic coins whose meaning had long evaded them.

“It’s really important to me that I take classes with real world applications,” stated Economics sophomore Bianca Gwenn ‘25. “I mean, this is real stuff that I can use in my real life. I don’t want to waste my time here on some useless humanities degree,” continued Gwenn, belittling students who had most likely learned the values of coins around the same time that they learned the meaning of the colors on a traffic light.

Though some students struggled with the idea the two quarters amounted to something called a “half-dollar”, by the class’ 30-minute mark nearly all of them were making strong progress towards their goal. As the students counted both backwards and forwards from 0 to 4, the sense of intellectual growth within the room was palpable. 

“25 + 50 makes 75!” cried one particularly enterprising freshman, all but guaranteeing his admission to any of Cornell’s top consulting clubs.

“Next week we’re covering nickels and dimes,” explained graduate TA Joe Swaft. “It’s definitely going to be a big step up but I think these guys can handle it. Usually students really struggle with the idea that something can be worth less than one dollar, but these guys had it figured out in no time at all. It’s a really promising group.”

While this new knowledge has left many members of the class feeling financially empowered, the inherent risks involved in finance made themselves known after one student attempted to cram a dollar bill into a gumball machine to “get all four at once”.

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