Personal Finance

Personal Finance- a subject which seems to be of increasing interest among high school students within the California Virtual Academies- is a case of an academic subject with the strong potential to integrate numerous key mathematical concepts to young people's everyday lives. Students who opt to take this class do so with a number of possible motives. Some students are college-bound, already firmly grounded in upper level math, and are taking this as an elective class to acquire exposure in economics, accounting, banking, investing, and the business world. Other students are not necessarily college-bound, seeking to complete their 3rd year of required math with classes such as this which do not involve upper level math that they are unlikely to ever use (from their perspective), and find that Personal Finance covers information that they will find useful immediately upon reaching their 18th birthday. The challenge "When am I going to ever use this?"- a rather cynical question expressed by students in many math classes- is one which is very rarely uttered by students in this particular class. Indeed, the material covered in personal finance is essential for high school students to acquire both to manage their own finances as they enter adulthood, and to avoid being scammed by people who actively endeavor to profit from people's lack of knowledge and awareness in this area. In the posts that follow, I provide a summary of what I hope students will derive from this course. This certainly does not effectively summarize or replace the course text, or provide any readers with an advantage in taking quizzes or completing the written assignments; rather, it might more accurately reflect what is in the back of my mind, as the key concepts I hope students will acquire and retain as a result of completing this course.