Happy Space x Nebula Learning — Farnham College Event
Discussing wellbeing and personal finance with local sixth forms.
On Monday, we joined our partners at Happy Space for a day of talks hosted by Farnham College and attended by pupils from various schools and sixth forms in the wider Surrey area.
For those that haven’t come across Happy Space before, it is a non-profit founded by a team of young professionals that helps young adults like themselves manage their mental health and general wellbeing. Aside from producing guidebooks that feature invaluable contributions from the likes of Monzo, Arianna Huffington and Money Saving Expert, Happy Space regularly organise events and workshops at UK schools to increase awareness of the often unique stresses and challenges that millennials and Generation-Z face.
So, what happened on the day?
The talks revolved around the transition from sixth form to young adulthood, and how, among other things, regular exercise and managing your finances can go a long way in improving your wellbeing during this time.
This was the first time that Nebula had given a talk in schools, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Although all our conversations with teachers, parents and pupils have pointed to the fact that teenagers (perhaps surprisingly) want to learn more about personal finance, discussing finance with hundreds of teenagers and keeping them engaged is a different matter.
Fortunately, breaking the ice was left to Tegan and Sarah from Happy Space, who delivered a fantastic talk that touched numerous aspects of wellbeing that are so easily overlooked in this age of Netflix and social media. Some examples include: making use of available support networks at university and the workplace; taking steps to ensure that you get a good night’s sleep; remembering that being indoors 24/7 is not natural and that we all need to get outdoors every once in a while. One thing that we expected but that were still surprised by is just how easy a lot of this is to implement.
As for us at Nebula, Beth delivered a short talk (public speaking is not my forte, let alone to a room full of teenagers) that debunked some myths surrounding student debt and explained how compounding returns accelerate your savings over time; perhaps not the most riveting topics at first glance but we were pleasantly surprised by student engagement.
Happy Space then rounded off the talks by giving out the latest edition of their beautifully-designed guidebook to the attendees.
Some reflections on the talks
Overall, the day was insightful and confirmed our suspicion that today’s teenagers are not the disinterested misanthropes that they are frequently cast as; they are fundamentally concerned by the problems that young people face — such as soaring indebtedness and worsening mental health — and interested in exploring solutions to these issues.
More specifically to us at Nebula, we were surprised that most attendees were exceptionally well-informed about how the student loan system works. On the other hand, most teenagers were surprised that someone who saves £300/month in their twenties alone will end up with larger pool of savings (£1.8m) at retirement age than someone who saves £300/month between the ages of 35 and 65 (£1.2m). [1] Evidently, big numbers never fail to impress!
All in all, given how much negativity there is in the press about young people and money, we thoroughly enjoyed working alongside our friends at Happy Space to deliver a positive message about the topic to local teenagers.
At Nebula Learning, we provide UK schools with free online personal finance classes. If your school is interested in working with us, then please check out our website and fill out this form if you’d like to use our resources.
If you’d like to find out more about Happy Space, you can explore their work here and their impressive list of contributors here.
[1] Assuming an 8% compounding return, which is the FTSE 100 average over the last 30 years.
