As most Penn students can attest, saving and budgeting money in college are crucial skills.
Thanks to Wharton Women -- an undergraduate business group -- 185 inner-city Philadelphia high-school girls now have a head start on mastering such financial skills.
The girls were guests at the Dollar Diva Workshop in Personal Finance on Friday. The workshop, one in a series developed by financial-education company Independent Means, was meant to give the girls information on "making, saving, investing, giving and talking about money," according to the company's Web site.
The 185 attendees ranged from ninth to 12th grade at nine West Philadelphia high schools.
While this is the third such event, attendance was more than four times that of the previous one because for the first time some of the attendees were present on field trips.
Throughout the morning, the girls participated in a variety of activities, including evaluating a credit-card statement and completing a worksheet about budgeting money.
In one activity, the girls had to select their dream job, then list their monthly expenses and see whether the salary would be sufficient to pay their bills.
"I learned that there's a lot of stuff you're going to have to pay for, even without kids, like mortgages," Benjamin Franklin High School sophomore Shanera Gass said.
University City High School senior Gwendolyn Pollard, who considers herself "a big spender," learned a valuable lesson as well.
"I found out how much I spend on household stuff because I never knew," she said.
Not all attendees were equally pleased, however.
"It was OK," Franklin Learning Center freshman Wafai Dias said. "A better host or something more exciting would have made it better."
One of the key points of the workshop was the importance of establishing good habits now. This was especially "beneficial for the students who are college-bound," UCHS guidance counselor Amirh Lewis said. The workshop was also a valuable opportunity for them to interact with current college students.
The girls received free T-shirts, as well as complimentary breakfast and lunch. Some won books on etiquette and starting their own business.
