Reflection Blog - Fabrício Guerra

 Personal Finance J-Term

    The first time I read a J-Term Choice List back in my freshman year, Personal Finance was something that had made more of an impact on me out of all the other options. I was afraid that if I did it then, I would have forgotten all the information and it would've all been for nothing. I decided that I would probably do it for my Sophomore year, but the choices then were so good that I ended up leaving it as my third or second choice, something like that. Behold, that year my choices form wasn't submitted thanks to some sort of error and I had to choose a J-Term that still had spots available. So when my Junior year came I just told myself I was going to do Personal Finance no matter what, so I did. Before going into Personal Finance I had at least some outline of knowledge including investments, mortgage, net worth, college stuff, budgeting, etc etc. But like I said, it was only an outline of knowledge. When we started off with the stock market, I had no idea how much research and time is spent into figuring out what stocks to buy, when to buy them, how much I should buy, and when I need to sell them. I was also unaware of all the different types of strategies there were. From the second day this course had already blown my mind wide open to the world of finance. The core takeaway from the course in my opinion was budgeting and how important it is. Planning in general can help you limit your expenses, making it easier for you to save money and make the difference between your expenses and your income expand vastly. My favorite part of the entire course was when we did our Fourplex mini-project. Doing that helped me get a perspective of not only my preferred college town, but also how being a low-level landlord works. If you play your cards right, you can make incredible profits from that. Trying to find a fourplex was already hard enough, but determining its costs was even harder. Despite that being hard, I still ended up having a lot of fun. The two books were also very, very informative. Out of the two, my favorite would have to be Why Didn't They Teach Me This In School? because it gave you important financial lessons in brief but qualitative form. In all I would say this course isn't going to necessarily guide me throughout my adult life (although it probably will during its simpler parts) but it definitely opened my eyes to how money works in America. If I had to recommend anyone this course I definitely would, especially if they are an upperclassman. It's just a very necessary class since most people who graduate high school end up going flat broke due to a couple of months of college. 

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