By: Sofia Turek

I could only make friends with freshmen at lunch during Period 1 because the Financial Literacy class had no freshmen.

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In Financial Literacy, I’ve only made one friend—if you could even call her a "friend"—who rarely talks with me. I only met her because she was wearing a gem bracelet. What do you mean because she was wearing a gem bracelet? A junior wore a crystal healing bracelet. I told her that gems have no energy in them because I liked to criticize the extraordinary claims of crystal healing back then. She told me that she likes the aesthetic of the bracelets but not necessarily the healing

powers of them.

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I only talked to her then.

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Back to the Financial Literacy class, I don’t know who to collaborate with on group projects. That “friend” is not at my table, and I don’t talk to her at lunch. It’s a challenge to immerse myself in the lessons and work on the assignments when I don’t have someone to converse with over the topics.

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The people I talk to at lunch are mostly from my grade: some close friends, some kids that take ESOL, and some random juniors and seniors. We usually discuss some news about something unexpected that we can all talk about. None of these kids take Financial Literacy, except the one freshman I talk to.

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But Financial Literacy is socially complicated when you have multiple grades in your class, with only 1 other sophomore, whom I’ve known since 4th grade, and no “real friends." I don’t have time to casually talk to her and become close friends like I wish I could.

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The point I am trying to make is that it’s very hard to make friends in Financial Literacy when you don’t already have a friend in the class with you. It’s hard to be assigned a group with peers you don’t particularly like and have to work with them the entire year. 

 

But I do really enjoy the class itself, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about saving money and planning for your future in a safe and secure way.