Investing Classes for High School Students in Houston

About Investing Classes for High School Students in Houston

Students often report leaving high school feeling like they didn’t learn practical household skills, especially finance-related ones. Many students feel that they are dropped into the world without understanding how to save and invest money or how to keep detailed records of their personal finances. Students who are worried about this should consider enrolling in a summer investing and financial literacy course to help them become more independent and better equipped for making sound long-term financial decisions. Students can also learn how to make their money work for them by investing capital into asset markets that can help them earn passive income over the course of their lives.

Why High School Students Should Learn Investing

No matter what route you take with your life, you are almost certain to benefit from learning the basics of finance and investing. Learning to avoid financial pitfalls and start saving early will pay off in the long run, as students who learn the basics of investing are better equipped to build their portfolios and give themselves more time to earn money over the course of their careers. These classes are ideal places for students to get on the path to financial independence by learning skills like budgeting and safe investing that will help them build a financial safety net that can help them avoid crises, save for retirement, or prepare to make large-scale purchases.

Learning investing skills can also open up a range of different career paths for students looking to find work in the financial industry. The financial industry employs over a million people in the U.S. alone, including Day Traders, Investment Bankers, Brokers, and Financial Analysts. Learning the skills necessary to find work in the financial industry can open a wide range of career doors, especially in a city like Houston which is seeing significant growth in terms of population and economic activity. Many businesses are setting up shop in Houston, particularly tech and financial service companies looking to take advantage of the newly developing tech sector. Numerous start-ups are cropping up in one of the country's most diverse and fast-growing cities.

In-Person Investing Classes in Houston

Houston is home to some of the finest universities in the South, and there are numerous pre-college programs for students looking to learn investing over the summer. These classes aim to provide students with training in finance and investing and an understanding of what studying economics at a collegiate level is like. Students will get to explore college campuses and take advantage of the facilities and faculty offered at the institution.

For example, the Bauer Business School at the University of Houston offers Business Summer Institutes for students looking to learn the art of investing and financial independence. These courses will teach students how they can make money in the stock market and how they can monitor their personal finances. These courses are ideal places to learn the practical skills needed for financial independence.

Virtual Investing Classes

Students may be unable or uninterested in commuting across Houston daily to attend one of the local investment training programs. These students should seriously consider their options for live online summer training. Given the advances in online pedagogy, live online courses offer instruction that is every bit as good as an in-person training course, meaning that students learning online won’t be sacrificing any of the benefits of real-time instruction. Students can ask questions and receive personalized feedback from expert instructors and be assured that their lessons are current.

Students interested in learning practical financial skills can enroll in NextGen Bootcamp’s Excel, Finance, & Investing Summer Program. In this course, students will receive live, hands-on instruction from financial experts with years of experience working with clients and building their own investment portfolios. Students will start by learning how to use Microsoft Excel to track personal and professional financial records and how the program can be used to automate financial functions and forecast the long-term valuation of assets. Then, students will learn the practical and theoretical side of investing, including basic skills such as how to buy and sell stocks and what different kinds of assets they can invest in, to more complex skills like how to read financial data and make informed decisions about what companies and assets are the best long-term investment. This course will provide students with real-world experience and will set them up for success in their financial future regardless of whether or not they pursue investing as a career.

Students can also enroll in a program like Teach Me Wall Street’s accelerated Wall Street 101: Investing and Trading course. In this program, geared toward students looking to learn the ins and outs of the stock market, participants will get practical experience simulating the work of Day Traders and Stock Brokers. In the first half of the course, students will learn the principles of building a portfolio, including how to trade stocks and assets, how to read earnings and financial reports, and how to judge the quality of a given investment. The second half of the course will give students hands-on experience researching and forecasting stocks and assets, including live trading simulation exercises that will help students acclimate themselves to the process of trying to make money on the stock market.

How to Choose an Investing Class

Students looking to enroll in an investment class will find that there are many different options available to them, and in addition to deciding between in-person and online classes, students will also need to decide what specific program they want to enroll in. This can be difficult, and there is no single answer to suit the needs of all students, but generally speaking, students should consider factors such as price, accessibility, and curriculum when choosing the investing course that best suits their needs.

Students will want to consider how accessible an online or in-person class is and how this might impact their options. In-person classes will require students to find a ride to the training center or to commute on public transportation, which can add time and cost to the course. For an online class, students will need to be confident that they can get as much as eight hours of uninterrupted time to work and study during the day. Students will also want to consider the cost of attending a bootcamp when considering their options. While summer programs can seem expensive, the advantages of live training and hands-on instruction make them well worth the investment. This is especially true when learning financial skills since you don’t want to cut corners or risk learning from a non-reputable source to save a little bit of money in the short term.

Students should also consider what kinds of lessons are being taught in any given summer program and how they align with their long-term goals. For instance, if you are interested in an investing class because you want to learn basic household financial skills, you’ll want to find classes that focus on skills like using Excel for recording and forecasting financial records. These skills will be less important for aspiring Investment Bankers. While they will need to learn Excel, they will also need to learn skills like reading earnings reports and analyzing financial data—skills which won’t be as useful for students looking to put their money in a safe mutual fund and forget about it. While all these skills have value, students should prioritize programs that focus on the elements of finance and investing that will provide them with the best ROI.