Game of Life: Lessons on Whats After Graduation

During Champlain College’s Game of Life, first-year students are turned loose in a room full of options after they are assigned entry-level, degree-specific salaries aligned with the latest Bureau of Labor and Statistics data. They visit booths that offer entertainment, groceries, transportation, insurance, pet care, clothing, and more.

Budgeting, But Make it Fun

To play the game, students make choices about these everyday expenses, and develop a monthly budget. After they’ve made their way around the room, the students balance their budgets and meet with financial counselors to discuss their decisions and learn about things like cost of living, employee benefits, income taxes, student loan installments, retirement plans, and other personal finance topics.

At the end of the Game of Life, students meet with financial counselors to discuss their decisions and learn about cost of living, employee benefits, income taxes, student loan installments, and retirement plans.”The magic happens when students realize their dream apartment costs 60% of their income. Suddenly, they’re problem-solving with peers, negotiating trade-offs, and discovering that financial literacy isn’t about memorizing rules, it’s about making choices. We watch them shift from ‘I want this’ to ‘How can I make this work?’ and that’s when real learning occurs,” says Zeke Davico, InSight program manager.

Life After Graduation

So what makes the Game of Life so special? The simulation uses the latest in social constructivist theory to create a low-pressure way for students to explore what their financial future could look like after graduation. Plus, because students do it in their first year, everyone has plenty of time to reevaluate their goals and sharpen their personal finance skills over their remaining years at Champlain. They will graduate with a personal budget allocation plan already in place that they can use on day one of their post-graduate journey.

Champlain College has made quality personal finance education an essential and mandatory part of their curriculum. The Game of Life falls under Champlain’s unique InSight program—a four-year career and financial education that’s overseen by Champlain’s Career Collaborative.

Insight You’ll Use for Life

InSight teaches students the skills and strategies to position themselves in their careers and manage their personal finances and wellness. It ensures every student graduates with:

• A professional resume and cover letter targeted to the student’s career goals
• An up-to-date, polished LinkedIn profile
• A 30-second elevator pitch response to, “Why should we hire you?”
• A budget allocation report based on projected salaries for careers related to the student’s major
• A cost of living analysis based on the geographic location of the student’s prospective jobs
• A credit plan identifying steps to improve the student’s credit profile
• A personalized student loan repayment plan
• And more

The InSight program creates career-ready students who have connections in their field and confidence in their skills. The students receive feedback, feel empowered to manage their finances, and understand how to market themselves. The unique career and financial focus of the InSight program allows students to understand the financial implications of making career-related decisions and vice versa.