Human Capital

Brad Case

Writing Assignment #1

9-19-05

When you think of investments you may think of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, savings accounts, CD’s, and etc. There is some other way that you can invest. You can invest in your life through various things whether it is volunteer or paid. That is called human capital and that is “the stock of knowledge and skill, embodied in an individual as a result of education, training, and experience that makes them more productive” (1). I have invested in my life in a variety of ways and I will talk about this in the next few paragraphs.

The first thing that I went through was something that started when I was six. That is when I started kindergarten at Kirbyville School. I went to Kirbyville until grade six and then transferred to Branson and went there until I graduated as a senior of the class of 2002. Here is where I learned valuable skills that I can use in college. We all know that we learn the basics like counting and our ABC’s all the way up to trigonometry and College Prep English. The most important thing about high school though is that you learn perseverance to get through rigorous studying and long homework assignments. These things prepare you for college. So schooling before college is a very big investment because that is the first building block of getting a job later in life that provide you with a lot of capital.

The next step that I took was going to College of the Ozarks. If this is not preparing me for better money in the future I don’t know what is. I am an accounting major and I am taking classes that are giving me a very big potential for a wide variety of jobs in the future. I have taken beginning and intermediate accounting and am taking advanced accounting right now. I have taken cost accounting, government/not-for-profit accounting, tax accounting, and am taking a class to make me better on the computer for accounting. I have also taken business classes to help me understand the managing and marketing aspect of a business. The main teachers in my field of study have been Mr. Mahlman, Mr. Bearden, DR. PETTY, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Moody and Mr. Reily.

I am also going to a college that is a work/study college and that means that you work for your education on campus. This is giving me a good work ethic so I can be more productive later in my job. My workstation is at the power plant. My supervisor is Josh Ponder and Gary Brown. They have both shown me how important it is to be safe on the job. I have found out that the least little thing that you wouldn’t expect can hurt you. The college focuses a lot on character and character will be used in an upcoming job because if I don’t have good character I will probably eventually get fired or I won’t be a good productive worker.

My first job at College of the Ozarks was the Friendship house. This will prepare me for the future because I did not want this job to start out with. Since I had the job though I decided I was going to work my hardest so that I could get a good work grade so therefor I could possibly get a good job for the next semester to come. This paid off and I got a ninety nine percent on my work grade and that propelled me to get a really easy job on campus and that is the power plant which I have talked about above. This job also helped my human capital because it taught me how to cook so I could live by myself and not starve. Also since I persevered through this job it taught me character to stick it out through the rough times that might come with other jobs in the future. Craig Crosby was my main supervisor and Leonard was the head cook.

My first human capital investment outside of education is a job that I got when I was sixteen. I worked at a grocery store called IGA. The owner and bosses name is Tony Breeden.

Some of the jobs that I had there was I sacked groceries, stocked and faced shelves, bagged ice, took peoples groceries out and the most important one of them all is that I was a cashier. Being a cashier really helped my human capital because it quite possibly spurred me on to my next job. It helped me to get acquainted with money and how to accurately count it. The big plus on the money aspect is that IGA was a check casing place and the customers went through the cashiers to cash the checks so I had a great deal of experience cashing checks. It also helped me to be a lot more confident with customers and to come out of my shell a little bit. This job also helped me to know how do deal with people who want to get on your nerves and persevere through that. That is key because if you can’t persevere through things like that then you will have a hard time with jobs to come.

My next job is that I got a job at a bank called First Community Bank of the Ozarks.