| Club exists to educate students about financial responsibility (4/08) | | Print | |
| Written by Angela M. Chen | |
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Two students, coming from very different backgrounds with very different sources of inspiration, have fused a common interest in the world of finance to create a new club.
Sophomore Jonathan Siu and junior Alice Tan recently joined two clubs to form Investment Club. Although Siu wants to focus on investment and Tan on entrepreneurship, both have a mutual goal: teaching their peers how to efficiently manage personal finance. Coming from a family often short on money, Tan grew up knowing how to be frugal while she watched friends squander their allowance. She hopes Investment Club will help students become more prudent consumers “Personal finance is really important because having financial security gives you so much more opportunities to achieve what dreams you may have,” Tan said. Siu hopes the club will also teach students to invest money wisely. Siu’s father played an important role in inspiring him. "My father is an entrepreneur; he built his own business from the ground up," he explained. Siu began to invest in actual stocks in the fifth grade. Although he gets financial knowledge from his father, he does actual research and analysis on his own. "I sometimes read books about finance, and I do a little research each day to understand how the market works," he said. While Siu’s financial education was more informal, Tan gained business knowledge through a program she attended over the summer at UC-Berkeley — the National Foundation of Teaching Entrepreneurship. The program teaches young adults how to start their own business while giving back to the community at the same time. Investment Club is a continuation of the business plan Tan developed as part of the program. Her business plan got the attention of the National Foundation of Teaching Entrepreneurship, which recently gave her an all expenses paid scholarship trip to go to New York to ring the opening NASDAQ bell. “It wasn’t as exciting as I thought because it’s actually just a button; there is no actual bell,” she said, laughing. But the trip presented other thrills: along with 38 students from around the world, Tan presented her business plan to over 1,000 business leaders in New York. “Going to New York and meeting new people with the same goals and aspirations more than inspired me to have a new perspective on everything,” she said. She returns full of passion to teach club members about opportunities in business. In addition to financial wisdom, Investment Club teaches students how to take chances and risks, an important life skill, according to Tan. “Also, when you learn about the stock market, you become more globally aware of what the nation is up to and you grow more confident from knowing a variety of things,” she added. Freshman club member Ada Truong agreed, adding, “We talk about a lot of things that you could apply to real life and things that really prepare you for the future. It’s important to know how the market works if you want to do business or real estate or just know how to buy and sell stocks. Learning about the stock market helped me see things in a different way, like what goes on behind the scenes in a company.” Sophomore member Kenneth Mensa said the club has helped him better understand the financial market. “Whenever I read the news or see statistics online, I actually know what they are talking about now,” he said. “And I can predict what stocks will go up or down.” Siu and Tan often bring in current economic news articles and lead discussions. At the last meeting, they discussed the value of different currencies and the depreciating dollar. Other topics will include how to open businesses and deal with different types of competition. As practice, club members trade virtual stocks on an online Web site (stockmarketgame.org). “It’s not really a gamble,” Siu said. “You actually have to do a lot of background research and look up a lot of information before you invest your money in any company.” Next year, when club members have more experience in the stock market, Siu plans for them to use fundraised money to invest in real stocks. “We have a lot of fun and our club is not like another class,” Tan said. “People are actually passionate about it and they want to learn this. They want to learn to use money to make more money.” Investment club meets after school every Monday in Room 255. |
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