Coming into the Independent Study and Mentorship Program, I knew I wanted to utilize this opportunity to dedicate efforts towards expanding my knowledge on investments and business acumen. Having an interest in solving problems in a creative manner and trying to look out for others while helping myself as well, impact investing appealed to me as a profession in which I would be able to expand on this nature of creating meaningful impact while capitalizing on my analytical, communication, and computation skills. Therefore, I had concluded that the best representation of my acquired skillset and knowledge would stem from intensive research into the stock market and the creation of an investment plan. Ambitious at first, I imagined the establishment of a comprehensive stock financial portfolio as my Original Work project while implementing the actual investment plan by pitching it to investors would stand for my final product. However, as I came to realize through primary and secondary resources, that the establishment of a comprehensive investment plan includes intensive mathematical research and proactive planning, I reevaluated realistic goals for myself which included the completion of a creative yet educational infographic detailing my research while describing applications of that research through specific stock picks for my Original Work. This educational investment infographic, representative of my work in this program thus far, combines the leadership aspects, the technical components, and the soft skills that are vital to an investor.

Despite this foreplaning, the actual execution of the Original Work was most critical in this entire process. With a hefty amount of schoolwork and an imposing amount of work to select my stock picks, time management was of essence, and I believe that mastering this skill proved to be the hardest part of this process. Ensuring that I was following the necessary protocol of logging each sitting that I dedicated to my Original Work and completing the small tasks was vital as it would help expedite the compilation of my Original Work but a sense of laxity, although minimal, caused growing amounts of unnecessary stress. Although this did not impact the quality of my Original Work in a significant manner, the lesson I learnt will be beneficial as advancing into new chapters of life will require self-commitment and planning, and since there won’t be any external motivators, setting personal deadlines and goals will be ever important.

In addition to the intangible lessons, I leant through this experience, I also gained a significant sense of pride in the practical sense of my product. This creative approach to an investment plan serves as the blueprints to a future enterprise, one that I believe has the potential to impact our community in a large positive manner. This educational investment plan, delineating the vitality of impact investing and specific examples of ESG stocks that simultaneously prioritize return and impact, serves as a precursor for the implementation of a complete financial plan complete with an extensive portfolio of stocks and other equities as well. In addition to being an asset to the society in the near future, this educational investment infographic will also help propel me into my Final Product as I plan on establishing and implementing my own investment plan and measure key indicators of returns and impact made. Although investing may sound easy, I will be pushing my limits as the input and courage required to study and select stocks is large and to monitor – especially when to buy and sell - is even harder. However, doing this will allow me to truly gain an all-encompassing set of knowledge over the topic of finance as I will not only be exposed to the planning and development phase of the investment plan but also to the implementation and management side of it as well.

Through these interconnected yet diverse set of experiences, I hope on gaining a vast set of technical knowledge over the topic of impact investing while developing as an individual.