Over the summer, UVU hosted international visitors who were attending the Personal Financial Planning (PFP) program’s Financial Literacy Camp. Dr. Qianwen (Rachel) Bi, assistant professor in the PFP program, organizes a three-week camp each summer and winter for Chinese students to visit Utah and learn about personal financial planning. Rachel began the program January 2017, and has held four successful camps since.
Students spend the first two weeks of the program taking personal financial planning classes and preparing a presentation that serves as their capstone for the experience. The students come from a variety of educational backgrounds. “Some of them are from engineering, marine science, information technology — they come from all kinds of disciplines. We split them into groups so they can help each other,” Dr. Bi explained. They take classes that teach them about credit card behavior, investment strategies, fund selection, etc. They use this classroom experience to prepare a personal financial plan for someone — real or imaginary. In fact, one group prepared a plan for Tony Stark. The groups present to PFP faculty who provide feedback and additional coaching. “The goal is for the students to apply what they learn, and hopefully apply that knowledge to themselves,” said Dr. Bi. “We teach them how to set lifelong goals in a smart way, and help them see the things they could do right now to start saving and make progress to accomplish those goals. We want them to develop the mind of a financial planner.”
After the students complete the capstone, they get a certificate signed by the dean saying they completed the Financial Literacy Camp, and it serves as their diploma. “They can frame it and put it on their wall, but that’s the proof for the experience. It means a lot because one day when they’re interviewing for a company, the hirer will see the experience on their resume and will ask them about the camp.”
The last week of the camp is spent touring through Utah, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. This provides the students with a great opportunity for sight-seeing—and visiting Disneyland is a nice way to graduate. Students fly back to China at the conclusion of the three-week camp.
“I feel like there is a demand for financial literacy education in China because they don’t really have a financial planning major at any university there,” said Dr. Bi, who’s from China originally. “They have financial management, investment, insurance, finance, but not a financial planning degree like we have here at UVU. I feel like people need to be more educated in general to understand some basic strategies to take care of their personal finances. I see people buying individual stocks all the time. They trade them often, which isn’t good financial behavior for individual investors, especially when they don’t have enough background knowledge. I feel like they’re gambling their life savings when it comes to investment in the market in China.”
“College students really trigger a warning at the government level, and the government tries to have some financial literacy workshops for college students. I have a really good relationship with Dalian Maritime University (DMU) — where I got my bachelor’s degree. Since UVU already has one of the leading financial programs in the nation, why not build something that creates more international impact? We at UVU have a passion to improve the general financial literacy education, not only for the U.S., but also for other countries that need help. That’s where all this started.”
“I know there are a lot of students that need this type of opportunity, especially if they want to pursue a higher degree after they graduate from the university. The camp provides a taste of the college life in the U.S. so they can decide if they fit into the culture and if they like the teaching style. We have great confidence in our faculty’s teaching ability. I started working on this program as soon as I got hired at UVU. I had to start from zero, but we put the students in classes on campus, took them on company visits, and provided opportunities with local firms. We choose firms that are well known by Chinese companies, so when they put it on their resume, it means a lot to them. We take them to Fidelity at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. Fidelity has a branch in the city where GMU is located, where they do research and hire GMU students, so it’s interesting to have that connection with a U.S. headquarter. Students are interested in the company culture, and it helps them get a better spot when they’re competing for a job at Fidelity.”
“The experience also matters overall to understand the culture, like how to deal with the different cultures, and there are also career development activities in the program. We take them to the Career Development Center on campus and have the counselors review their English resume, and then help them see how to professionally interview in English. We also have leadership classes, and I feel like those mean a lot for them, because they want to learn some leadership skills. In my opinion it’s the way to say, ‘Okay, if they’re interested in doing an MBA, they’ll get exposure to our faculty, and if they like the class, maybe they’ll consider coming here for graduate school.’”
“I keep in contact with students from the program using a social media app called WeChat, the biggest communication tool in China. If you ever do business in China, you have to have WeChat. People use it every day. Not all of the students stay in good contact afterwards, but a good percentage often do, especially the ones that want to study abroad. The ones that have a closer relationship with me while they’re here also stay in good contact, and they’re going to be the ones that help us the most when we start recruiting for the next round.”
“We hope that others will see that Utah Valley University and the Woodbury School of Business has a great financial planning program, one of the top in the country. I feel like running a camp like this makes us more diversified and inclusive, and creates relationships with universities in other countries as well. Chinese universities will have similar majors like financial planning in the near future, so hopefully we’ll be the ones known by Chinese universities, and there may be some collaboration opportunities. We hope to be planting the seeds in the students so when they apply for a master’s program, they’ll want to come here. There’s a good percentage of students that decide to study abroad because of this eye-opening opportunity. When they apply, they usually put UVU as one of their options.”
“There aren’t many financial planning programs that run camps like this. I’m so grateful for the support I’ve received because if I was at another university, I’m not sure I would’ve received the same support, and I would’ve given up. I love my business school and the university so much!”
