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Alum demystifies finances in the collegiate sphere

Alum-demystifies-finances-in-the-collegiate-sphere

In print | October 1, 2009

“A Blast from the Past” was the subject line of an e-mail that 2012 Class Dean Myrt Westphal received earlier this semester.

The e-mail was from Matt Wallaert ’04. As a part of his fairly new job, he has been traveling around the United States giving lectures to students on finance. He wrote, “And of course, I can’t forget my alma mater—Swarthmore College.”

Wallaert made the offer to Westphal in July that he might come and give a lecture to Swarthmore students, and he did so last Friday, Sept. 25.

Wallaert graduated from Swarthmore in 2004 after only three years here but chose to stay to do research with Associate Professor of Psychology Andrew Ward and Professor of Social Theory and Social Action Barry Schwartz. In 2007 he left to do graduate research at Cornell. While at Cornell, he received a phone call from a company asking him to be their consultant. Skeptical of businesses, Wallaert said no.

“Some people asked me if I would like to consult for their company about choices, and I was like ‘No. I’m an academic, and I think of business as at best normal and at worst evil.’ And then they worked on me and worked on me, and I finally agreed to meet them. They turned out to be great people who help people get financial literacy and live better lives,” Wallaert said.

And so Wallaert signed on as a part-time consultant for Thrive (www.justthrive.com). In 2008, he joined the company full-time after his adviser at Cornell left. Since then, he’s become Thrive’s lead scientist. His job involves product development as well as talking to people about their finances. That’s what led him back to Swarthmore.

Westphal, at the time, was planning a series of programs to fight the sophomore slump. She had been to a convention about sophomores in June 2007, and when her class became sophomores, she was determined to help them get through the year as smoothly as possible.

Other program events include this Friday’s sophomore collection with President Rebecca Chopp and coupons for coffee dates with a professor of their choice.

“We’re trying to have the sophomores learn life skills, being thoughtful about the choices they make and we thought this was a topic they might not get elsewhere. I think sophomores have a lot of choices to make, so I wanted them to have the tools to make them wisely,” Westphal said.

She promptly agreed to Wallaert’s suggestion. Westphal said that Wallaert made it very easy for her, including providing his own transportation and money for door prizes.

This was not Wallaert’s first trip back. Since leaving Swarthmore, he has returned many times, not only to do research but also simply to visit.

“I often come back. I continue to collaborate with Andrew and Barry. And I still have friends here, like the crazy lunch ladies. There’s always a sort of ritual process where I have lunch with them every time I come back,” Wallaert said.

Wallaert’s lecture mainly touched on subjects such as student loans, the meaning of credit scores and how banks work. For some students, those are valuable information that they would not have learned elsewhere.

“I knew nothing about credit scores before this. Or how the banking system in the United States worked. I’m going to get a credit card now to build up my credit score and control my spending so my pockets can be a little better,” Romane Paul ’10 said.

In addition to financial advice, Wallaert also said that Swarthmore taught him to apply what he learns in order to change the world for the better.

He then suggested for Swarthmore students to go into business in order to supply the business world with “good, moral leaders.”

Wallaert also gave his own thoughts on the sophomore slump:

“We all come to Swat with a lot of momentum, and then you go away in the summer and you live in the outside world. … You’re confronted with the world where you feel like you may not fit in anymore. And a way to confront that is to come and bring in … ambassadors from the world that can come back and say you can make a difference out there. And even if things aren’t the way they should be, you can make it closer to be where it needs to be.”