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Alumnus prepares students for financial obligations

The Hayden-Clark Alumni Center was filled with students ready to learn about how to handle real-life problems after leaving the Hilltop. Specifically, the financial obligations that come after graduation.

The Student-Alumni Association hosted “Life after BU” for students. The promotion for this event was said to help ease students’ entry into real-life financial obligations.

“Our goal with the Life After Bradley U series is to pinpoint relevant topics such as finances, relocating, dinner etiquette, etc. to prepare students for life after graduation,” said assistant director of alumni relations, Christin Ferrall. “Within the events, students will have opportunities to learn valuable information and connect with [alumni] who once walked in their shoes.”

The speaker was a 2016 alumnus Mateusz Koszarek, who is currently a financial adviser for Northwestern Mutual. He gave a presentation about how students should best balance their post-graduation financials.

Koszarek explained the pillars that help guide financial plans and statuses: Saving, growing, protecting and giving. Additionally, he touched on how to pay off student loan debt, explaining that it’s all about balance.

Savings were explained as “knowing what you’re wanting to do and planning how much to save,” according to Koszarek.

Koszarek said he came to Bradley to talk about this for a simple reason.

“It happened to be an existing relationship,” Koszarek said. “My [managing] director was also a Bradley [alumnus] and the alumni office reached out to him and he had asked me to fill in because of the younger audience … since I was a younger advisor I could be [a] more relevant person to have these conversations.”

Students who attended the event felt they garnered enough information to develop a financial plan for the future.

“We should be investing early,” junior industrial engineering major, Ana De Zamacona, said. “I hear that all the time, but seeing that comparison of starting late compared to the 10 year difference of starting earlier: how much [savings] that can actually be in the end.”

Additionally, students thought the way the event was geared towards college students helped engage their attention.

“I think it was really told through the perspective of a college student,” De Zamacona said. “[It was] kind of like what we want to hear and what’s important to us and it was told in a way that was very intriguing to us students who did attend.”

Koszarek talked about giving back to the community, saying he felt he was doing just that by presenting at this event on Tuesday.

“You can give back in two ways: time and money,” Koszarek said. “I think for a lot of people when they graduate they feel as though all they can do is some sort of financial gift and even at that point they don’t feel that they can do it right away. Hopefully people got something out of this and it’s going to change their life for the better in some regard.”

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