We make selections as customers every day. Opportunity cost is defined as a person's next best alternative or cost of what you give up when you make a choice.

Think of a recent decision you made regarding your career. What was your opportunity cost for making that choice? What was your "next best alternative"?

In this project, you are asked to consider the opportunity cost, or the next best alternative of a recent career choice. Now, in making this choice, there were many alternatives. The alternatives that I would like you to consider are those that deal with not pursuing the career choice. Please note that there were a number of career choices to choose from, but the actual choice is not the critical issue. What is important are the alternatives that you faced when making this decision.

The choices that are available to you really depend upon your particular circumstances. Some of you are in your early twenties, and recently out of high school. Other students have been in the work force for 10, 15 and even 25 years. The choice that you made is a significant one, and you probably thought about it quite a bit. I praise you for your decision, and thank you for being proactive.

Now, please remember that an opportunity cost is not a qualitative measure, but a quantitative one. It is my understanding that, depending on the choice you made, your lifetime income may have changed by more than one million dollars. When doing this paper, you will need to verify this statistic that I have just provided you, or the appropriate statistic for your situation, citing your sources precisely. This source should be someone other than myself.

I hope that you have fun writing up this assignment. It just may convince you of how important your decision really was. Take care, and please whet your creative juices.