Students in the Women and Nonbinary Finance and Economics club recently started meeting. The club provides opportunities for women and nonbinary students interested in careers in finance and economics to develop their skills and knowledge.
“The reason why the club originated is because we realized that there wasn’t really a safe space for women and nonbinary students to be able to discuss personal finances and things of that nature.” College third-year and co-founder of the club Bridget Adu-Dapaah said. “We know that for women and nonbinary students, in finance or in economics, that space is very male-dominated. We just wanted to have that safe space here at Oberlin.”
The Women and Nonbinary Finance and Economics club differs from the Oberlin Finance Club, which also develops skills for students specifically in finance. Still, the Women and Nonbinary Finance and Economics club also creates a dialogue on what it means to be an underrepresented group in the finance field and provides additional skills in other areas.
“We realized that there’s a general expectation that people know baseline information about economics and finance, but there’s really no place to access it,” College third-year Sharanya Rajani, another founder of the club, said. “So we wanted to be able to give people that educational background. If anybody who’s not the main focus within economics and finance just feels scared of asking questions and wants to know more, we want to provide that space where they can learn the basics, to see if that’s something they really want to do in the future, or maybe just to use [the information] for themselves and to better their own lives.”
The club opens up discussion on what it means to be a woman or nonbinary person working in the finance or economic industry. It also hopes to expand on how being a minority in those industries affects how people perceive the information given to them about finance and economics. For example, the club discusses how women’s healthcare access affects their financial decisions.
