introduction to new unit
For me, the word "finance" has always signified the section my dad reads every morning but never a term I had gone into deeply. Turns out to be that finance is an extremely important topic for any one in the world. People who have the knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively are the people who are trully successful. You can be the richest man on the planet but owe millions of dollars. I learned that in a first world country like the United States an average citizen is in debt for $53,378. Can you believe that?
How can people be in control of their money and time? How can I best choose a bank? What should I spend on? What percentage of my money should I be using for every thing? How can I manage my time? What is debit? Credit? Stock market? Income? Loans? Taxes?
THESE were all questions that started to pop up in my 16 year old mind with no background knowledge at all in this subject. After prioritizing our learning as a class all these questions were reduced to one main idea: SHOULD I INVEST ON THIS?
Through the month we have set the goals to learn about four wide topics: budgeting, investing, loans and financial scams. But as we are an INNOVATION academy and we learn through putting all the concepts in practice we have already began three main projects.
First, we will be learning individually how to budget our time. Constantly, I will have to start asking the question in what should I invest my time on.
Am I doing every thing that is important to my life? Am I getting enough sleep? Do I have too much "chillin time?...
How can people be in control of their money and time? How can I best choose a bank? What should I spend on? What percentage of my money should I be using for every thing? How can I manage my time? What is debit? Credit? Stock market? Income? Loans? Taxes?
THESE were all questions that started to pop up in my 16 year old mind with no background knowledge at all in this subject. After prioritizing our learning as a class all these questions were reduced to one main idea: SHOULD I INVEST ON THIS?
Through the month we have set the goals to learn about four wide topics: budgeting, investing, loans and financial scams. But as we are an INNOVATION academy and we learn through putting all the concepts in practice we have already began three main projects.
First, we will be learning individually how to budget our time. Constantly, I will have to start asking the question in what should I invest my time on.
Am I doing every thing that is important to my life? Am I getting enough sleep? Do I have too much "chillin time?...
Learning about 'financial literacy' for the first time (strict as it might sound) was very fun. It is the topics you have no previous knowledge about that awaken your curiosity the most. I learned the difference between credit and debit, the relationship between risk and reward and new vocabulary such as dividend (investment profits) and capital (equity). Yet today might had sounded like a load of new information was introduced, we were very conscious to plan ahead on how to get the most knowledge of each of the areas in a month. Here's were the new project got introduced:
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH $3000 dollars?
Real money is in play and like the real world we can either WIN or LOOSE.
It is our responsibility to find what should we invest on, how and why should we invest on it, for how long should we invest in it, what is our vision, what is the risk and the rate of return (yield). We will not only get to propose our idea but actually put it in action. For me having the opportunity to manage money in a project of our own is a little scary but very motivational as our failure or success will completely be based on how we apply the concepts we are learning in class.
As I've seen in my life, money is not happiness but being aware of it and knowing how to manage it gives you power. The knowledge I desire to extract from this new unit will be applicable to take wiser choices in my daily life and will hopefully empower me to start working on my credit NOW in order to be prepared for the future and even start financing upcoming investments such as college.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH $3000 dollars?
Real money is in play and like the real world we can either WIN or LOOSE.
It is our responsibility to find what should we invest on, how and why should we invest on it, for how long should we invest in it, what is our vision, what is the risk and the rate of return (yield). We will not only get to propose our idea but actually put it in action. For me having the opportunity to manage money in a project of our own is a little scary but very motivational as our failure or success will completely be based on how we apply the concepts we are learning in class.
As I've seen in my life, money is not happiness but being aware of it and knowing how to manage it gives you power. The knowledge I desire to extract from this new unit will be applicable to take wiser choices in my daily life and will hopefully empower me to start working on my credit NOW in order to be prepared for the future and even start financing upcoming investments such as college.