By Nancy Johanson
nancy@newsroom.byu.edu
Business, ethics and religion: three words not often heard in the same sentence.
But a new class at BYU attempts to combine them all, and promote service at the same time.
The Management Suites class is a new class offered in the Marriott School of Managment.
'In the class we learn a lot about ethical decisions we might have to make in the real world, and how to apply Christ-like attributes when faced with such situations,' said Keith Kofoed, 25, a junior majoring in business finance from Moses Lake, Wash.
Jeff Bailey, 22, a senior majoring in finance from Tampa, Fla., a member of the class said that this semester's class is a pilot program.
'The class is a three credit class, two credits are for religion and one for business,' Bailey said.
As a part of the class a service project that utilizes business skills to help the community was assigned.
For their service project, Bailey and Kofoed along with other business students, Jared Hale, Carla Green and Joey Nelson, have designed a Web site to teach financial planning.
'The site teaches about three different aspects of financial planning: investments, mortgages and debt management,' said Hale, a 24-year-old majoring in finance and Japanese from Portland.
The Web site located at www.geocities.com/myfinaceplan offers tips to help manage money.
Some of the tips found on the site include: account for every penny, put your money in an interest bearing account and save.
The site also helps show what all this saving can accomplish through a chart depicting the actual amount of money that will be accumulated by retirement age depending on how much money you save per month.
For example, the chart shows that if a 25-year-old person starts saving $100 a month for the next 40 years then by age 65 the amount saved, assuming there has been a 12 percent annual interest rate compounded monthly, will be $1,176,477.
The site's designers say 'with a simple investment strategy and an early start, you and your family can pave your way to a lifetime of financial security.'
The members of the group who designed the site agree that planning and carrying out this service project has been a good experience.
'It was a fun assignment because it implemented a lot of what we've been learning in class and how to apply it to the real world,' Kofoed said.