Investing Classes for High School Students in Chicago

About Investing Classes for High School Students in Chicago

Many students leave high school feeling that they aren’t equipped to handle some of the basic financial challenges they encounter in their adult lives, leading them to make bad decisions early on. One way to become more adept at managing your finances and avoid common pitfalls in saving and investing is to enroll in a summer investing class dedicated to helping high school students learn how to invest their money strategically and build long-term financial independence. These courses are great ways for students of any background to learn important financial skills, and they can be helpful for students regardless of what they aspire to do in the future.

Why High School Students Should Learn Investing

Learning financial skills like investing can help students become more independent and self-sufficient. These skills will help them learn how to stretch their dollars further and build long-term financial stability. Students can also learn how to avoid common financial pitfalls, which can set them up for later success in their personal and professional lives. Learning how to budget your finances and how to avoid falling into debt can have significant downstream benefits for students who take a wide view of their lives. 

Many students are also interested in learning financial skills to build toward a career in investment banking, stock brokerage, or financial analysis. The financial sector employs over a million people in the US alone, and many jobs pay upwards of $100,000 annually. Cities like Chicago, which are economic hubs and centers of business and development, will have even more opportunities for aspiring investment professionals. Learning how to invest money and capital into a complex portfolio can be a good career decision for students interested in entering the financial sector.

In-Person Investing Classes in Chicago

Students looking to learn investing skills in Chicago have a wide range of options available to them. Chicago is home to a number of world-renowned universities, including the University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, Northwestern and Loyola. These schools offer a range of summer programs in which high school students can learn skills like investing, financial literacy and economics. These courses will allow students to learn financial skills from expert instructors and an introduction to the work and study in a college-level economics class.

Virtual Investing Classes

Students who don’t feel up to a commute through Chicago or who are interested in exploring other options to learn investing skills should consider looking towards live online classes. These courses, which are taught by live instructors in real time, bring all of the advantages of the classroom into your home. Students can receive support and feedback from their instructors, and they will get guided, hands-on training in investment principles and strategies. With the shifts in online pedagogy over the last few years, students who opt for a live online class will receive an education every bit as good as if they were to attend a course in-person.

Students can enroll in a course like NextGen Bootcamp’s Excel, Finance, & Investing Summer Program. In this course, students will start by learning the basics of using Microsoft Excel to monitor their finances, budget for their household and automate functions to help them predict their economic future. Then, students will start to learn the basics of investing in asset markets. This includes practical skills like how to buy and sell stocks and understanding the difference between different kinds of stocks, bonds, funds and assets. Students will follow this up by learning the theoretical and data analysis skills necessary to make long-term financial decisions based on evidence and an understanding of existing financial information. This course won’t teach students how to hit it big on their first stock purchase. Instead, it will teach students how to make sound financial decisions and investments that pay long-term dividends and help them achieve financial stability.

Students can also enroll in courses offered by universities in other cities, like the Georgetown School of Continuing Education Learn How Investors Create Wealth course. This class will introduce students to foundational economic and market concepts, and they will learn how emerging technologies like FinTech, cryptocurrency and the blockchain are shifting the way that investors look at assets. Students will learn how to predict the future of markets and how to value whether or not a given stock or asset is likely to increase in value over time. Students will learn how to create personal and professional investment portfolios and receive the training they need to be prepared for more advanced finance and investment classes at a college or university level.

How to Choose an Investing Class

Students looking to enroll in a summer investing course will have a number of things to consider when looking at their options. Beyond choosing whether you want to learn in-person or online, you’ll need to consider costs, accessibility and the skills taught in the program. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer for the best class to take, students should spend some time considering their own needs and goals before enrolling in a class.

Live online classes and in-person classes taught by live instructors tend to be pricier than recorded counterparts, but the advantages of having a live instructor are numerous. Students can ask questions, receive feedback and work alongside their instructors and cohort. Especially in a field like investing, it is important to ensure that your training is vetted and reputable; live online and in-person classes can ensure you aren’t getting scammed. Students will also want to consider things like the accessibility of the class. If it is an in-person class, this will account for how much time they will need to add to their schedule to factor in the commute (and the challenges of navigating Chicago public transit). If it is an online class, students will need to consider their availability and whether or not they can be online for upwards of eight hours a day in a virtual classroom.

In addition to these practical concerns, students must consider what skills they hope to acquire in their investing class and seek out a course that teaches these skills. Some students may want to enroll in these courses to become more comfortable with their personal and household finances and set off on a path toward financial independence. These students will want to look for training programs that emphasize things like Microsoft Excel and stable investing advice (like how to build a portfolio based on mutual funds and stock market indexes). These skills will be less useful to students seeking investment management or brokerage careers. These students will want to prioritize classes that teach market analysis skills and provide hands-on lessons working with advanced forecasting technologies.