Investing in your
F U T U R E Economics professors say financial success comes from budgeting, planning and learning to cope with change and uncertainty BY ALEXANDER TUMALIP
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YU–Hawaii professors said preparing economically for the future will largely come as a result of how students learn to adjust to these unique times. No matter where people live, they said being proactive self-learners will set someone apart in the eyes of future employers. When planning for the future, they said it is important to ponder, pray and rely on the Lord. Erin Frederick, assistant professor in the Faculty of Business & Government, said planning for the future consists of hard work through investing and setting specific, achievable goals. “Investing really is balancing your incomes and expenses,” Frederick shared. “You need to learn what you’re putting your money into.” Fredrick said with COVID-19, more and more people are “getting caught up in things like the GameStop situation and not really investing.” Frederick recalled the time she and her young family bought their first house in her
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hometown of West Palos Verdes, CA. The house was 945 square feet, old and too small for Frederick, her husband and their two young children. “We bought that house, and all we did was work on it,” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had some goals. I’ve done the same to every house I’ve owned since then.” The profit is not instant money, she said, it’s hours and hours of work and budgeting. Frederick said the same process applies to economic planning for students. Students’ major goals will be challenging to meet, so they need to develop a strategy, she said. Frederick noted students may not be able to directly achieve their goals now, but they can slowly work on them in the meantime to get where they need to be. Gale Pooley, associate professor in the Faculty of Business & Government, said the biggest objective for students is anticipating what will happen tomorrow. “We need to ask
ourselves what the future will be like based on our current situation,” he explained. Pooley said the strength of the market is uncertain due to downsizing because of increased remote work. The only exception is construction because the demand is high, he added. Ricardo Vicente, assistant professor in the Faculty of Business & Government, said students should see education as an investment, especially during the pandemic. “When you go to a trade school, you learn the ‘how’ of your field. The future, however, needs knowledge, which is the ‘what’ and ‘why,’” he said. “When people say to follow your passions, what people forget is you need to put in the work every day,” he elaborated. Learning experiences come from school or from working in the field, he added. Vicente said students should assume they will not have the same success as someone else, and said they need to understand Heavenly
