There is an obvious lack of financial education in the United States Public education system, and therefore throughout my high school experience I have never obtained any information on personal financial education from school. However, after my father passed away and our family of three were left to sustain ourselves on my mother's low salary, financial education became very important to me. Since then I have learned how to file taxes, the differences in mortgages and credit cards, how to be conscious of using credit wisely, and much more. But most importantly, I learned that while financial education is important what is even more important is financial responsibility. Even on a low budget, if everything is planned out and you are conscious of money in and money out, you can live a fairly sustainable and stress-free life style, as long as you stay within your limits of spending. I plan on expanding greatly on what I have learned and hope to not fall in the same trap as my parents, who in their early years were unwise with their credit, and like many young Americans fell in a trap of constantly paying off debts. As apart of the Core Curriculum program at Columbia University, I will be learning much about Micro and Macro economics which will guide me in making decisions regarding bonds, stocks and to know when interest rates will lower so I can take out helpful loans. Understanding the basic principles of economics, as I have in high school by taking AP Macro Economics, will help me make large scale decisions in what to invest in at the current time to make the best of future predictions.