Ammar Zafar/Staff Photographer
Though “personal finance” is probably not the first thing that pops into peoples’ heads when they think of clubs at Wesleyan, a group of female students is working to change that. Catherine Alvarado ’16 is bringing Smart Women Securities (SWS), a non-profit with chapters at 17 schools nationwide, to the University in order to educate women about matters of finance and investment.
Alvarado recalled a friend who works at Morgan Stanley giving her advice that stressed the importance of learning about personal finance and investing, which are skills that many adults fail to master.
“He asked me about what I was going to do with all the money I had earned over the summer and I said, ‘I am going to buy food,’ and he said, ‘Well, you should consider investing it,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know anything about investing.’”
Alvarado turned to books on investing but found them difficult to understand. She was encouraged to keep learning, however, after reading an article in The Wall Street Journal about 29-year-old Tracy Britt Cool, one of Warren Buffet’s most trusted advisors at Berkshire Hathaway. The article featured the non-profit organization Smart Women Securities (SWS), which Cool founded as an undergraduate at Harvard.
“SWS is one of the few female-only investment organizations featuring undergraduate women in the United States,” the organization’s website reads. “Our mission is to endow every woman with the proper skills and training in order to successfully invest on her own.” Smart Women Securities National also offers mentoring by professionals from J.P. Morgan and even a chance to meet Warren Buffett.
Alvarado was able to find fellow students to become founding members of Wesleyan’s chapter of SWS by posting in the WesAdmits Facebook groups, and receiving enthusiastic responses. The founding team, which includes Alisse Singer ’16, Alexandra Bacchus ’17, Jessica Seidman ’16, Mia Gege Deng ’17, and Vanessa Chen ’16, still has yet to be approved by SWS National, a process that requires much time, dedication, and effort.
“We are currently in the soft launch phase, and once we become a full-fledged chapter, we will get resources from SWS National,” Chen said.
The club has already received two hundred dollars in funding from SWS National. The leaders have used a portion of the money to fund an informational video promoting the group, and a portion to fund a “Cupcake Survey” in which they quizzed Wesleyan students on their investment knowledge in exchange for a free cupcake. On March 29, they also participated in the Wesleyan Women’s Conference and delivered a presentation about investment and personal finance.
On April 21, the founding team will find out if its application has been approved. If so, the team will begin reaching out to alumni and possibly professors to teach a 10-week seminar in the fall focused on investing and personal finance, with a curriculum provided by SWS National. Then, students can look forward to applying what they have learned towards stock pitch competitions.
“We believe that personal finance is an important skill that everyone should be able to master, especially Wesleyan students, because in this stage of our life, we are about to enter the workforce and earn regular paychecks,” Chen said. “Learning to manage your money is not just for economics majors.”
Of the six members of the founding team, only two are economics majors.
“All majors, despite career interest, are welcome to join this club,” Deng said. “So far we have had 69 people who signed up for this club and expressed interest, and a really small portion of them are economics majors.”
The members also highlighted the important role activism plays at SWS.
“We aim to get females involved in a typically male-dominated atmosphere,” Seidman said.