President's Showcase
David Wedderburn He/Him/His
Supervising Professor: Dr. Michael Brady
Hailing from Broward County, Florida, David Wedderburn is a senior at Florida State University, majoring in Marketing with a minor in Commercial Entrepreneurship. Since he was young, David has had a fervent passion for financial literacy. As a first-generation college student, he often spends his time educating his friends and family about the importance of credit, budgeting, and investing in hopes of helping others in his community begin to build Generational Wealth and Success. When he's not working, David finds solace in playing basketball, cooking, and journaling in his spare time.
Abstract
The purpose of this project is to conduct qualitative research to determine the needs and interests of my target audience, low-socioeconomic high school students. The responses serve as the basis of a finance curriculum to provide students with tailored information relevant to their needs. This project unearthed the interests of low-socioeconomic high school students in Gadsden County, FL, related to personal finance. It also identified what a holistic college application to Florida State University should contain by interviewing a former FSU college admission staff. Through a Qualtrics survey distributed by Upward Bound, a Florida State University pre-collegiate program, I received responses from twenty-eight underrepresented students from Gadsden County, spanning all high school classifications. In their responses, I uncovered that (a) 78% of surveyors identified as women, (b) more than half of the students surveyed lack business professional clothing, and (c) over 64% of respondents seek to improve their essay writing skills.
