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Kadyn Rawls

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Finalist

Bio

Hi I'm Kadyn, a University of Nevada, Reno student pursuing a double major in Accounting and Finance with a minor in Statistics. I am the founder of Kadyn's Fireplace, a personal-finance education platform that breaks investing down for complete beginners through a live portfolio, weekly writing, and short-form video. Alongside coursework at CSN and a state-placing FBLA school record, I like to build quantitative finance tools from scratch and I'm on a Series 65 →CPA credentialing path toward founding my own advisory practice.

Education

University of Nevada-Reno

Bachelor's degree program
2026 - 2030
  • Majors:
    • Finance and Financial Management Services
    • Accounting and Related Services

Miscellaneous

  • Desired degree level:

    Master's degree program

  • Graduate schools of interest:

  • Transfer schools of interest:

  • Majors of interest:

  • Not planning to go to medical school
  • Career

    • Dream career field:

      • Investment Management
    • Dream career goals:

    • Service Champion

      Taco Bell
      2025 – Present1 year

    Sports

    Wrestling

    Junior Varsity
    2024 – 20251 year

    Public services

    • Volunteering

      Project 150 — Sorter, Service Member
      2025 – 2025

    Future Interests

    Volunteering

    Philanthropy

    Entrepreneurship

    Marie Jean Baptiste Memorial Scholarship
    My name is Kadyn Rawls, I'm passionate about finance, not to make the most money as possible. Rather, to help the families and the students that I know have the capability to make it, with a financial system that grows communities and protects them from systemic risk. Growing up, I watched the effects the 2008 market crash had on my mother, and as I got older, I saw more and more how these black swan events (a rare, severe, unpredictable market shock) held people back. Specifically, when as I was in a lower income high school for a semester before being transferred to a magnet school, where I saw not a change in personality in students, but in opportunity given. This made me never want to waste a single opportunity given and prioritize a future where I would be able to provide people guidance toward an easier life with finance. Back to these black swan events, I noticed many of their parents (mine included) weren't protected at all from any type of risk they couldn't control. In 2020, I watched 4 of my friends go through financial ruin and had to relocate into areas where they would have less opportunity. So, I did the only thing I really even knew how to do, learn, and I capitalized off whatever opportunity I learned about. By 2026, I gained enough knowledge to start my own blog where I post weekly educational investment concepts for no price at all. And as of recently, I've come to a topic that interests me greatly, using options to hedge the market and protect against systemic risk. Eventually, after I research this more and more in university, I'll find a way to protect lower income areas against systemic risk. Therefore, these top institutions that only intend to capitalize off the losers in the market, will have to accept: society is better off, when everyone is better off