OHS, NHS seniors learn about Real World in simulation

Seniors at Olney and Newcastle high schools got a preview of adult life in the “Welcome to the Real World!” program at the Olney Civic Center. They learned the basics of setting up and running a household within a budget and making smart financial choices.

The seniors gathered May 18 for a brief orientation about how the simulation works, then received folders listing occupation and monthly salary and an expenditure worksheet that walked them through their basic monthly expenses, such as housing, transportation, insurance, utilities and entertainment.

Volunteers manned nine “major expenditure” tables with information and price lists for spending options in each category and talked to students about their choices. Olney Police Chief Dan Birbeck and Officer Dustin Hudson manned a “Wheel of Misfortune” that participants had to spin to get a sense of the unexpected expenses and windfalls that come with “adulting.”

An hour or so into the simulation, students were told to look inside their folders for a pink or blue dot, indicating that they were now “the proud father or mother” of a baby boy or girl.

Organizers from InterBank and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service told students to assume they were single, 25 years old and independent, with no financial support from their families or anyone else. They then made the rounds of the tables, learning to deduct taxes, start a savings account, and spend their monthly “salary” on the necessary and luxury items that they chose.

If they ran into problems making their budgets balance, they headed to the “financial adviser” table manned by Jerry Campbell, InterBank senior vice president and security officer. Campbell also briefed the students about how to avoid identity theft and financial scams and write checks – an experience that only about half of them had.

At the end of the two-hour simulation, the students discussed their choices with instructors and learned the real-world implications of being financially responsible. Campbell ad dressed the fallout from bad decisions: from failing to plan realistically, such as “buying the red Corvette because you can afford to make the first couple of payments” to failing to pay rent on time with a roommate “so both your credit scores are ruined.”

He also warned students to guard their online financial identities and account information from scammers, running through several scams that make up the 700-800 fraud cases he sees each year at InterBank branches.

Campbell, who has run the Real-World simulations for eight years in several towns, said some students bring their parents to his presentations to help them make better decisions about spending money. “When we teach locally, they bring parents, and ask ‘How best can I help her? I’m going to work right out of high school.’ It melts your heart,” Campbell said.

“If we can help students make good choices … we know those habits will follow them for the rest of their lives,” Campbell said. “We’ve had them come back and say, ‘I didn’t get it then but now I do.’”