The minimax-regret strategy for weekends

As the weekends approach, students are often faced with the decision between staying home, studying, and cleaning or going out, spending money, and making memories. Every week, the student faces a new dilemma in order to balance their academics with social life and extracurricular pursuits; as the semester progresses, the opportunity costs change with it. As midterms approach, students are faced with the choice between doing schoolwork or going to a party and the regrets of the options increase. Students may choose to receive a lower grade on examinations by going out every night, study every night and miss out on bonding experiences, or follow the minimax-regret strategy and balance their nights in and out. 

The minimax-regret strategy is defined by Mueller as choosing the action that minimizes the regret(the opportunity cost);the individual will make the choice that minimizes the maximum loss or regret. According to Resnik, regret can be calculated by, "subtracting the possible outcome for the option from the highest possible outcome among the different options." He applies this formula to investments in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds to demonstrate how the minimax-regret strategist will choose the option with the lowest opportunity cost and the maximum outcome. Without even realizing it, we, as the student body, make this type of decision on a weekly basis. We calculate the maximum outcome of receiving a high grade and the maximum outcome of going out and meet somewhere in the middle to minimize our regrets from how we spent our time during the weekend.