After my freshman year in college, high-brow, intangible theories were dead to me. I took a full course load of philosophy and liberal arts courses that left me begging for a practical education, yearning for a movement away from all the different “-isms” and toward action verbs. I transferred from a liberal arts program at NYU to the School of Foreign Service with this hope in mind.
Looking back, the past three years of my education haven’t left me with a better sense of what my life philosophy is, or what it means to be a part of a community of knowledge-seeking individuals. Those questions were always a side note to what I did learn, which can be summed up in a box neatly divided into four squares, with one column and row labeled “cooperate” and the other labeled “defect.” This box is known in game theory as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
This dilemma is applied to a variety of situations where there is both cooperation and competition in the international system. The diagram often demonstrates that while cooperation may be the best overall outcome, two parties will choose to defect, or will choose the overall suboptimal outcome.
Last week, I was late to a lecture-style class taught by an extremely engaging professor and established author in the field of international relations. He maintains a policy that favors absence to lateness. In other words, not showing up to class is better than showing up five minutes late. To explain this policy, he uses the logic of collective action to demonstrate that individual rationality leads to a collectively suboptimal result.
“Suppose that every time a student is late, I become distracted for a minute. Multiply that minute by the 65 students in the class. It becomes costly for the collective experience,” he wrote to me when I asked why he held this policy.
From a student perspective, this policy immediately calls into consideration a number of points. First, a student who is engaged and interested in a subject should not be penalized for wanting to come to class and be engaged for as much of it as possible. Second, each student pays about $3,000 in tuition for every course, and the opportunity cost of showing up late, on an individual basis, severely outweighs not being there at all. Lastly, in a lecture-style class, collective input isn’t even encouraged in the first place. Therefore, there is little incentive or reason to be concerned about the experience of the person sitting next to you, when there is no class discussion going on.
My professor provided a counter-anecdote explaining how tuition costs reinforce the collective action problem.
“In our society, lateness is acceptable in certain settings, but not others. So, we don’t like it when someone shows up late to a $10 movie, but we live with it. When it comes to more expensive tickets—opera, symphonies, even Hoya basketball games, people are not allowed to walk in late (you have to wait for a break). Considering what tuition costs, I prefer to think of your classroom experience as more valuable than the movie experience.“
Given the number of classes the average student has in one week, alongside part-time or full-time jobs and on-campus activities, this argument doesn’t quite convince. If I had to go to 10 operas in one week for nine months in a year, I’d probably be late to at least two.
Perhaps I am too idealistic, or too influenced by Hindu philosophy, but I believe classrooms and teacher-student relationships are sacred, and shouldn’t be lowered to the level of game theory, collective action, or the prisoner’s dilemma.
Surely, each student’s learning experience is dependent on collective input and cooperation is essential to the most optimal learning environment. However, the classroom deserves a better place in society; I believe it should not just be a place where we receive a grade, but also a space where we develop and learn how to be decent and accepting human beings.
Game theory may be applicable in many scenarios where there are high payoffs and big powers at play. A classroom, on the other hand, shouldn’t mimic the competitive and self-interested nature of the average nation-state.
Ironically, when forced to work within this zero-sum framework, I choose to defect. Just as rarely as we see cooperation in the international system without incentives, as a student I have no incentive to lose out on an entire hour of learning just for the fear of humiliation or potential cost towards my peers. Although a matter of opinion, I do not see my lateness contributing enough harm to my fellow classmates to see it worth losing the accompanied $3,000 price tag, and I see many of my peers agree.
I’m not saying you should be disrespectful, or frequently or intentionally late, but if you stand in front of the door and the Healy clock tower rings, I say: go to class. Be a knowledge-seeker. Make the most of your education; before you graduate and enter into the “stag hunt” survival game of the real world.
