Description

Personal Financial Plan (Draft 2)

            I am in my senior year here at WPI, so the ever-inevitable fact that I will have to enter the real world and get a job is inching closer and closer each day. I want to make sure that when I leave school and pursue a career, I will be financially literate enough to be financially stable and set myself up to be financially stable in the future. Some of the concepts I must understand in order to accomplish this are core values, a family plan, and a career plan,

Core Values

            Identifying one’s core values can help reveal what motivates a person and help them improve oneself. It is simple to identify what values I should have, but it takes more to see the reality of what core values I do have. In my opinion I think my core values consist of Family, Accomplishment, and Accountability. I have been raised to always put family first and foremost, because at the end of the day, they are the ones that are going to be there for you. It has been apparent that when I am struggling, the only people who truly care and act on the situation are my family members. I also value accomplishment. I have always felt that certain accomplishments like being a above average student in high school and college and attending a prestigious university like WPI have given me confidence in myself and given me some self-worth. Finally, I value the trait of accountability in myself and others. I believe when someone makes a mistake they should be just as accountable as when they do something positive. If an individual is not accountable when they fail, then why should they be accountable when they are successful? I believe growing up as an athlete has ingrained a sense of accountability, and could even make me become too hard on myself at times. These three traits make up my core values and reveal a lot about me as a person and will help me in my personal financial plan.

            In terms of a personal brand, I have always tried to portray myself as someone who is respectful, hard-working, intelligent, and understanding. Whenever I work with others I always try to treat them the way I would want to be treated, regardless of any preconceived notions or judgements that I could make on them. I have always felt that too many people think that they have a person figured out from the first time they meet them. I think this impedes on the connections that an individual can make and closes many doors for a person. From a young age I have always been taught that a strong work ethic is the most important component to success. I have always taken pride in the fact that when things get hard, working through is the only way to be successful, opposed to giving up and losing all made progress. I have also been taught by my family that a very important component to success is education and becoming intelligent. By attending WPI, my family and I have invested in my intelligence in order to become successful. Although it would be dangerous to compare myself to others and assume that I am smarter or more importantly better than them because I attended college and they did not. Most of the population will not go onto attend college and this does not by any means make them unable to be successful. I feel these views show my ability to understand and empathize with others. These traits of mine help form my personal brand, which can change in the future, as I “reserve the right to get smarter!”