DESCRIPTION
KWHS is an investment competition which is an initiative by the Wharton University of Pennsylvania. It is a 12-week competition. In the process of the competition, the team learns about risk-taking, communication, investment and other tasks. A hypothetical person has asked your firm to invest shares in companies and has given the firm $ 100000 to invest on behalf of him. There is an online simulator OTIS where investment takes place. The team has to make a plan on investment strategies and then invest accordingly. We had nine team members in our group each of them were given a specific task to perform. At the end of the competition, we submit a document with all our investment strategies during the process and also the companies we have invested in is evaluated.
Learning Outcomes achieved
LO1. Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
I am fond of business topics, and so I decided to do this activity as it was related to my further studies. Investment is something that I have very less experience of so it took time to perform tasks and prepare investment strategies. However, I have done a course which is similar to KWHS, and on that portfolio, my strength was that I was able to predict and invest in good Indian firms and get good returns. I also learnt the process of when to sell the shares and earn good dividends which made my Investing portfolio strong.
LO2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
The biggest challenge for me was communication and lack of information. Repeatedly I was not able to grasp the points of some team members which further lead to incompletion of work and less progress. This affected the team as a whole. Developing the habit of questioning the person for any queries is important as this helps you to understand your part of work better and focus on the task effectively. In the beginning, OTIS simulator was difficult to know by every team member as it was complicated and we had to check every feature of it. This delayed our planning but then our teachers, and an experienced tutor of KWHS helped us to provide any information we needed and get our hands on with the investment strategy to follow.
While investing we are taking the risk as the next day the share might fall for a particular company and our team’s portfolio will be at a loss but it can also pave a success path for our ongoing strategies.
LO3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.
Time Plan is a critical tool to make decisions and work according to the plan created. This plan will make sure that every team member follows the deadline and completes the task assigned to them. Before you start a CAS experience, an insight is essential in that particular study area to gain more knowledge. The primary skill that I learned here is multi-tasking. I had many other tasks to do, but I had to be focused on KWHS, so I started doing things side by side.
LO4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.
We all had come to school early sometimes to look and self-assess our progress. OTIS worked according to the New York stock exchange and London stock exchange. So we had to invest accordingly at midnight or other time when the market opens we trade and sell our shares. Commitment towards the passion will get you to your goal. Without involvement, you have no direction.
LO5. Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively.
The team was divided among nine people, and one person’s mistake can cause a problem to the whole team, and so the decision needs to be taken by the team and proceed further. It is beneficial for everyone to work together as it helps everyone in completing the work on time. By teamwork I got help, and there was sharing of perspectives and knowledge which was beneficial in applying to our activity. I got motivation from other team members how to perform the task at your full potential which in turn developed my thinking.
LO7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
Taking the information for the company to see their potential growth might be unethical and reviewing the private data is unethical morals which do not support this kind of practices.
The team members did not want to harm the company’s image and steal their data. Instead, we wanted to learn from the data to get more insight into the company and see their growth trend and other information to let us know should we invest in the company or not.
Conclusion.
The learner profile attributes that were obtained from this CAS experience are
- Inquirers
- Knowledgeable
- Thinkers
- Principled
- Risk-takers
- Reflective
Overall this investment exposure was excellent as I learnt many valuable things from this activity on finance and strategical analysis which will help me in my further studies.
Our team did not win, but we all were happy about the fact that we devoted our efforts in the competition and got to learn some amazing life experience. Our efforts were successful in identifying where we stand in this particular field.
