![\"\"](\"http:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/newsletters\/BusinessNetworks\/June2006\/images\/0013.jpg\")
\n<\/span>Nicholas Valverde<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Nicholas Valverde<\/strong> (BBA \u201906) a finance major with a certificate in banking, and one course shy of a minor in economics, and Richard Bruguera<\/strong> (BBA \u201906), who had a double major in finance and accounting, took advantage of an independent study option to complete their required Honors College coursework\u2014and assist their younger classmates. Robert Hogner<\/strong>, associate professor of management and international business, coordinator of the college’s Civic Engagement Initiative, and a senior fellow in the Honors College, supervised the project.<\/p>\n \u201cSome parents haven\u2019t taught their kids how to manage money, and many students who aren\u2019t finance majors haven\u2019t had the opportunity to learn what we have,\u201d said Valverde, who now is working for a private equity fund. \u201cWe wanted to help them understand how to manage their money, from controlling their use of credit cards to determining a budget, to investing, to creating a savings plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Piloting the presentation was a priority.<\/em><\/p>\n The duo developed a PowerPoint presentation and piloted it on new associates in their fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi, before offering it as \u201cFinancial Literacy\u201d information sessions through the \u201cFirst Year Experience.\u201d All students entering Florida International University with fewer than thirty semester hours must take the one-credit course designed to help acclimate them to college life and its expectations.<\/p>\n \u201cI was never very good at using credit and was dipping into savings when I shouldn\u2019t have been,\u201d said college MIS major Randy Borges<\/strong>, a member of the pilot group.<\/p>\n He gave the experience \u201ctwo thumbs up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe presentation was really informative and presenters laid it out in a way that was very understandable,\u201d he said. \u201cI am now managing my money much more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n Students leave a legacy.<\/em><\/p>\n Valverde and Bruguera planned a twenty-minute presentation but received so many questions and so much interest that they expanded it to a full hour.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started, I didn\u2019t think students would be that interested, and it was very satisfying to see how involved they became,\u201d said Bruguera, operations manager of nonprofit Parent to Parent of Miami, Inc.<\/p>\n Although the two creators of the program have now graduated, they have establish the foundation to leave a legacy\u2014one of the requirements of the independent study project.<\/p>\n \u201cRichard was a member of the Financial Management Association (FMA) and I belonged to the Financial Honor Society (FHS), two organizations that work closely together,\u201d Valverde said. \u201cWe met with the two boards and got them to agree to continue the project as a community service project and provided them our presentation to use in future sessions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea for this project seeded when an BBA major was offered a full Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) scholarship from the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) plus $3000, to study in Spain,\u201d Hogner said. \u201cShe had to decline, citing needing a job to make payments on her new car lease. Why a car? She answered, to get back and forth to work!\u201d<\/p>\n According to Hogner, \u201cValverde and Bruguera\u2019s senior project is a fine example of experiential learning with a responsive and substantive community impact. They already have changed lives, and the project they developed will change many others.\u201d<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tantalized by a steady flow of letters announcing, \u201cYou\u2019ve been pre-approved for a credit card,\u201d some students are finding themselves in credit card debt. And they may not have the additional financial savvy to know how to budget and save. Two recent graduates from the College of Business Administration and the Honors College recently set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[862,875,937,2006,2139,2200,2243],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24423,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions\/24423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n \n ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/FacultyStaff\/hognerr.jpg\")
\n<\/span>Robert Hogner<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n