April 27, 2015
Rachel Librach
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Figuring out your finances for school can be confusing and frustrating.
That’s why the Mountain Lion Money Matters program organized a competition where students could submit videos that better explain the financial process to students.
The videos had to be submitted by April 2 and uploaded to YouTube so students could watch them and vote for their favorite. On April 21, a reception dinner in UC 303 was held to honor the contestants and the winner was awarded $500.
The videos had to be three to five minutes long and discuss a financial topic. Some chose to discuss scholarships while others illustrated strategies to best conserve your money for college.
The winner for this year’s Money Matters competition was Ryder Tam’s video “Scholarships in the Golden Era.”
The video was a comedy portraying a young man feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of paying his way through college. The narrator in the video assists the character by showing him ways he can earn scholarships to help him pay for school.
Tam was absent from the reception dinner, but his teammates Lisa Erickson, Frank Maxwell, Guissepui Palmero and David Marino accepted the award on Tam’s behalf.
Marino described the four minute video as a way to help students struggling with financial aid have a better understanding of different programs that can help.
“Our video was about assisting the general public and any people who have questions about money, paying for college, going through FAFSA and getting scholarships,” he said.
“Many people think they can’t make it because school is too expensive, that they have to pay out of pocket for $20,000 a semester, but the fact of the matter is that it’s easier than that.”
Maxwell believes that not only was this competition a fun way to get students talking about financial aid and simplifying some of its more daunting aspects, but it brought people from all different types of majors together to create the video.
“I think it’s good that this contest exists because it brings people together who are from all different fields of study; psychology, communication, and engineering for example,” he said.
“None of us have any financial background, so it forces us to learn this process the same way students first learn or experience financial aid.”