Widely Popular Personal Financial Planning Half Block Fills Two Classes

Julia Fennell ’21

Over 50 students are spending part of their Winter Break on campus, learning about financial planning, investing, and budgeting.

Personal Financial Planning has been a Half Block at CC for over ten years and is often an incredibly popular class with a waitlist. The course is being offered twice this Half Block due to high enrollment numbers, with one class taught by Sue Allon ’81 and the other taught by Dr. Tim Nguyen.

“I’m not surprised at all at the course’s popularity, and I’m so, so glad that we are able to offer two sessions,” Allon says. “I think a course like this should be a requirement for every CC student, and I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of CC parents would agree with me. This course could be labeled ‘Lifeskills 101.’ Regardless of your major—and I mean that, this course is for every student, not just those planning a business career—the skills Prof. Nguyen and I are going to teach are absolute essentials for managing life after college. The sooner you learn these things, the better. If you can learn them in the safe haven of a classroom, then that’s so much better than learning them the hard way, as so many new graduates do when they run into trouble surviving on a starting salary. Many of the students in this class are eagerly, or in some cases anxiously, anticipating their lives after college. I think they want this class so they can be that much better prepared for when they graduate.”

“This course could be labeled ‘Lifeskills 101.’ Regardless of your major—and I mean that, this course is for every student, not just those planning a business career—the skills Prof. Nguyen and I are going to teach are absolute essentials for managing life after college.”

Sue Allon ’81

“CC is not only innovative but also is rather clairvoyant,” Nguyen says. “It is truly exciting and complete for the college to offer such a course, to round out the learning experience as students prepare to graduate. Being ‘financially literate’ then is connected to one’s physical well-being and has immense public policy implications.”

“I was interested in taking this class because it achieves the filling of a glaring hole in my education thus far,” says Annabelle Swenson ’25, a Molecular Biology major and History minor who is taking the class with Allon. “Although I feel like I know a lot about many things, I have no idea about money. I think that this class represents a massive hole in the education of young people.”

Swenson is hoping to learn ways to use finance to her advantage and to decrease her anxiety around things like taxes and investing.

“I see my parents and adults in my life constantly dealing with money, and they say it took them forever to figure out how all of these complex systems work by muddling through them,” says Swenson. “Although they encourage me to begin learning about personal finance, they are woefully unprepared to teach me the skills. Instead, the topic continues to be a can I kick down the road of True Adulthood. I assume many of my fellow classmates feel the same way, and like me, jumped at the opportunity to start learning these topics early, with peers, and from trusted and knowledgeable sources.”

Dan Schmidt ’25 is a first-generation college student who is passionate about entrepreneurship and co-founded a sunglasses company.

“Personal financial planning is important for CC students because personal finances post-graduation are different from personal finances prior to and during college,” says Schmidt, who is taking the class with Nguyen. “During college, many students are financially supported by a combination of their parents and scholarships, grants, or loans—with loans being the only option that exists after college in the real world where you no longer have ‘fake gold card money,’ but instead a credit card that has to be paid off every month.”

“Curiosity about these topics in the past has been answered by a quick skim on a Google search, so learning about them more holistically in a classroom setting should strengthen confidence about each topic and make for well-reasoned financial decisions down the road.”

Dan Schmidt ’25

Schmidt hopes to learn more about tax planning, health, property, and life insurance, effectively using credit, and investing strategies.

“I think for myself, and many of my peers, curiosity about these topics in the past has been answered by a quick skim on a Google search, so learning about them more holistically in a classroom setting should strengthen confidence about each topic and make for well-reasoned financial decisions down the road,” says Schmid, a Computer Science major. “I hope to solidify my understanding of personal finance so that financial decisions don’t feel like guesswork after college.”

Personal financial planning is an important topic to many CC students, some of whom believe they haven’t received an adequate financial education throughout their school careers. Students in the two sections will learn about tax planning, how to budget, manage liquidity, finance large purchases, protect assets and income, and invest money for retirement. The class is pass/fail and students will not receive letter grades, which many view as a positive aspect of the course.

“Evaluating this class on a pass/fail basis supports the course curriculum,” Schmidt says. “Whether you like it or not, personal finance is something that you should have an intrinsic desire to learn because it is paramount to many of life’s major decisions. By not being evaluated with letter grades, this intrinsic desire is encouraged and hopefully brought out by the two well-accomplished faculty CC has selected to teach the classes. It also reduces the pressure often felt when discussing finances, making this course much less intimidating to students with little experience in similar subject matter.”

Students of diverse majors, interests, graduation years, and goals are taking Personal Financial Planning, highlighting its importance for all students, regardless of potential career paths.

“I took this class because I want to make sure I am a financially responsible person,” says Chris Reyes ’25, an Environmental Studies major who is taking the class with Allon. “Even though I’m not a Business major, I know that being fluent in your finances is important.”

“I consider this class to be valuable for all CC students, since learning personal finance skills including tax planning, budgeting, and investing are all relevant areas that will provide a plethora of value.”

Ashley Stewart ’25

Ashley Stewart ’25, a Business, Economics, and Society major who is taking the class with Nguyen, enrolled in the course because she believes it is extremely relevant to the real world and will provide valuable insights as she continues her life beyond college. She is especially hoping to learn more about budgeting and how to strategically allocate her resources and income.

“As I have a strong interest in finance and economics, I thought this course was a great option to learn about household economics – a topic that is relevant in everyone’s lives,” says Stewart. “I consider this class to be valuable for all CC students, since learning personal finance skills including tax planning, budgeting, and investing are all relevant areas that will provide a plethora of value.”

Drew Greeley ’24, a Business, Economics, and Society major and Statistics minor, is taking the class with Nguyen and is hoping to learn how to manage his own personal finances for life after graduation.

“I have been lucky enough to accept a job offer following graduation and I want to make sure that I am equipped with the right skills to begin earning a salary, renting an apartment, managing insurance, and saving for retirement,” says Greeley. “However, it is cool to see such a wide variety of people from different grades in the class. What we are learning applies to everyone and their own unique situation.”

Nancy Heinecke, Academic Administrative Assistant for the Business and Economics Department, says Personal Financial Planning has been an extremely popular course since its inception. Over 1,100 students have taken the class, with 775 students taking it between 2016 and 2020.

“The popularity of this class does not surprise me since it is such an applicable topic to real life,” says Greeley. “Students generally want to learn things that can be directly applied into their everyday lives, which is the purpose of this class.”

Allon majored in Economics at CC and then went on to earn a master’s degree in accountancy and an MBA. She worked as an investment portfolio manager in the mortgage securitizations space for a few years and then started her own business managing risk on securitizations portfolios.

“I loved how economics worked—push these levers and these other ones move in response,” Allon says. “And I wanted to have a big business career and thought econ would be the best path towards accomplishing that goal.”

Allon was the director of National Jewish Health for over 15 years and served as an advisory board member of the Tuck School of Business from 2004 through 2019. She was a member of CC’s Board of Trustees for almost two decades. At a board meeting last year, Allon spoke with several faculty members about how popular this class was when it was last taught and how she would love to see it taught again, as it wasn’t offered from 2021 through 2023. Allon’s colleagues encouraged her to pursue teaching it, and Dr. Christina Rader, Associate Professor and Chair of the Economics and Business Department, was enthusiastic about the idea and recruited Ngyuen to teach the other class section.

Nguyen has worked on Wall Street and in investment management, healthcare service delivery, and finance and executive management for the past 25 years, and has taught business, economics, and finance at many colleges and universities in the country, including the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University.

Both instructors are Block Visitors on campus and teach classes in the Business and Economics Department.

“If higher education institutions are in the business of promoting ‘literacy,’ then including financial literacy in the curriculum is a natural extension and embodiment of its overall mission.”

Dr. Tim Nguyen

The first few days of the class were focused on basic topics that are the foundation of personal financial management, such as managing a checking account, understanding a credit score, managing debt, and creating a budget.

“We covered practical aspects of life, too, like insurance and getting a start in your career,” Allon says. “In the second week, we’ll dive into some more advanced topics. We’ll look at more common investments like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, but we’ll also take a look at investing in commercial real estate and venture capital.  I’ve got some fun speakers lined up for those advanced topics, to keep it exciting!”

Nguyen believes that there are several types of literacy, such as critical literacy, emotional literacy, digital literacy, cultural literacy, and financial literacy.

“If higher education institutions are in the business of promoting ‘literacy,’ then including financial literacy in the curriculum is a natural extension and embodiment of its overall mission,” Nguyen says.

“While everyone is required to take math classes in their years of schooling, real-world finance and budgeting is rarely a requirement,” says Christi Ashenden ’24, an Education major who is taking the class with Allon. “This class gives students a unique opportunity to learn skills we all need but don’t typically learn from our schools or parents. Our generation faces financial challenges that our parents and grandparents never did, so it is more important than ever that college students know how to spend, save, and invest their money wisely.”

After taking the course, students in both classes will have mastered the basic principles of consumer household finance, such as personal budgeting, credit, taxes, and insurances. Students will also have a better and nuanced understanding of personal investing, like time-value-of-money, investment asset classes, and know the importance of portfolio diversification. The final project for the classes includes a 15-to-20-page personal financial plan, which students begin working on after the first day of class.

“Managing your personal finances can be overwhelming, and managing them poorly or not at all can make your life hellish,” says Allon, who has taught a class on the financial crisis of 2008 many times at CC and will teach it again in Block 6. “I hope my students come away from this class with the knowledge they need to manage their finances wisely, and with the motivation to put a financial plan in place and work towards delivering on it.”