High school students get the question so many times about what’s next for them and what their future looks like. Money is one big thing that helps determine what the focus of your money is in the future. In a class of marketing and management, students are required to participate in the stock market game, buying and selling stocks. 

Junior Ava Shelton is one of those participating in the competition of the stock market game, not placing in the game, but going on to write an essay for the national competition. Her requirements were to write an essay about a certain topic.

“It mainly focused on things like my investing plan. It asked for a 10 year from now like an investing plan and then a 20 year and then a five year two and just like asking me what I thought was the best investment plan,” Shelton said.

These essays are not difficult, but they also are not a requirement. Students decide if they want to pursue the essay, putting in their own time and work for this essay.

“She did the research on the different financial tools that people could use, like different bonds or stocks. And then did she have a plan,” Deborah Drommerhausen, marketing and management teacher, said. 

Through the website invest right, Stephanie Musgrove, Program Manager of the stock market game, taking charge in helping with the essay competition and helping students achieve future financial success.

Musgrove and the team, on the website, talk about how “it’s important to think about your short- and long-term goals, and if investing can help you reach those goals.” 

For Shelton, the essay was not the hard part, it was finding the right angle for the paper was what troubled her. She has the idea of going into nursing and focused her essay around that. 

“It was hard finding exactly what I was going to write about. I was talking about my future a lot and then I started going into stocks and marketing, and investing. I used what I learned from Mrs. D’s class to help me,” Shelton said. 

This competition helps benefit not only now but later in life. It gives them new opportunities for not only their high school career but their future with money.

“It opens up a whole financial world that everyone is going to have to deal with and everyone is going to want to retire someday. It makes people know that there’s more than just a checking and saving and you gotta put some money into something else for the long term,” Drommerhausen said.