Managing your finances might seem obvious to many, but most Derry Area students are clueless. REBECCA HUSS / Sophomore I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Depending on how many you can answer confidently, the content of this article will speak for itself. How do I cash this paycheck? Where does this go when I cash it? How do I create a bank account? What are the types of bank accounts available? The most important thing to know about living in this world is finances. Any job available requires you to know financial information. You don’t have to be an accountant or banker to have to know finance. ...students should be taught how to manage finances in high school. The answers to these questions are important to know for everyday adult life. However, most teenagers aren’t taught the answers to these questions in high school. That means that when high school students graduate and get hired, they are clueless and stressed about what to do and how to do it when it comes to finance. “My job was stressful enough and not knowing what to do with my paychecks made everything more chaotic so I just let my parents handle them so I could focus on my job, ” says sophomore Tori Hutchison. Because of this, students should be taught how to manage finances in high school. Currently at Derry High School, the courses available regarding finance are Accounting I, II, and III and Business Apps I, II, and III. Accounting teaches students the operations and terms involved in banking and accounting and Business Apps teaches how to operate Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. Although these courses are available, there might be other courses that students want to take that they’re more interested in. Finance is an important subject in school. Because students might not take one of the courses listed above, I think there should be a required course regarding students learning financial information in life. The classes available only focus on specifically accounting or business. Although there's some information useful for everyday finances, I think there should be a course required only for everyday finances because students might not want to go into accounting or entrepreneurship, but every student when they graduate will have to know financial information specifically regarding everyday life. To gain more knowledge, I asked the current Accounting teacher at Derry Area High School, Mrs. Battaglia, why she thinks it’s important to know financial information during high school. “Financial literacy is important in today’s world to help people know how to manage their money. Students can benefit from financial literacy with simple knowledge on banking accounts,” Mrs. Battaglia says. “As teenagers join the workforce, they will be getting a paycheck and need to open a bank account to cash their check. It is also important for teenagers to understand how a credit card works so that once they go out into society, they aren’t tempted to get a lot of credit cards and go into debt.” I just let my parents handle every paycheck I received because I was so confused and didn’t know what to do with them. Even if students aren’t interested in finances, every student is going to graduate and get a job. Whether their job is a lawyer or working at a fast food restaurant, every job requires a paycheck; therefore, finances are involved. Regarding the questions listed above about paychecks, graduated students shouldn’t be left clueless when it comes to a job.
Some students even get jobs during high school. One student, Danielle Dominick, got her first job as a freshman in high school and was clueless as to how the system works. “I just let my parents handle every paycheck I received because I was so confused and didn’t know what to do with them,” says Dominick. Adding in the course regarding only the basics of finance and making it a requirement will help every individual student entering high school to prepare for their future. When it comes to making purchases, paying for college, and getting a job, the importance of knowing the basic financial information is vital. MR. CURCIO | English Back in 2002, Allen Iverson, the retired, hall of fame basketball player for the Philadelphia Sixers, stepped up to the microphone and proceeded to say the word “practice” 22 times to sarcastically rant about how he was being judged for not “practicing” hard enough. More than 15 years later, this response has become the topic of a documentary, an allusion response to whenever someone even talks about practice, and yes, even a meme. Albeit Iverson successfully mocked the concept of practice, he did not minimize the importance of practice in everything that we want to do well. The SATs are a stressful time for a lot of high school students. I vividly remember taking the SATs with a set number in mind because my goal was to attend Penn State University. Of course, I do not remember that exact number, but currently, a typical Penn State student earns a score of 530-630 for Reading and Writing and a score of 560-670 for Math. For those wondering, to get into Harvard, a typical student scores between a 710-800 and 720-800, respectively. Being a student-athlete, I respected and valued the importance of practice. If I struggled with a certain play, I redid and replayed it over and over again until I got it right. If I needed work on my track start, I read articles on strategies and techniques until it was the best that it could be. YouTube wasn’t necessarily a thing yet. Just like a game on Friday, you can’t practice exactly what will happen on “game day” for the SATs, however, you can practice - which is where the PSATs come into play. The PSAT literally stands for Practice SAT. Not only this, but based on how well you do on it, you can qualify for scholarships strictly for practicing. As an analogy, this is like wrestling someone at practice and because you pinned your teammate, you automatically letter. Some of you may have laughed at that comparison, but it’s not that far off: a letter is something you work for and earn… just like scholarships. At this moment in time, it’s probably too late for you to take the PSAT, as the dates this Fall were October 16th, 19th, and 30th. However, the test is not going away. My advice to any underclassmen is to take the PSAT whenever it is offered, especially if you have goals of earning scholarships or getting into a particular college. Before you take the PSAT, choose three schools that you are interested in and find out what a typical student there usually scores to be admitted. Write these numbers down because these three numbers are your goals. Once you get your scores back, cross-analyze and see where you are. If your scores aren’t good enough, keep practicing - you can take the PSAT as many times as you wish. If you’re comfortable with how you did, then get prepared for the SAT - when it matters. Allen Iverson tried to diminish the importance of practice by mocking it. It’s not mentioned as much as the quote, but the year before, his team made the NBA Finals. After his rant, he never won another playoff series as a Sixer. Yes, the SAT is the game, but the PSAT is more than “just practice,” especially if you want to win. MR. CURCIO | English
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