Chapter 11 - Bad Girl
Christmas break came, giving Amy a welcome break from her studies. However, the break was the calm before a very big storm. Just before her finals, Amy realized that the time had come to pick a major. As she pondered what interested her, she realized with some anxiety that the field she really liked was economics. It was the term paper that had changed her mind about the field. Amy realized that international development was a fascinating topic, and a powerful one that affected people around the world more than practically anything else. Amy felt a strong desire to understand the world. Economic development would go a long way to helping her achieve that understanding.
Amy noticed that Ruth Burnside was teaching two sophomore-level classes in the Spring. These were two of the classes that Amy would need if she wanted to major in economics with an emphasis on economic development. Amy now was faced with an important decision. If she took these two classes, her life would be hard over the next five months. She had a feeling that Burnside's opinion of her had become much more favorable since she graded the Vietnam War paper, but she also knew, from having talked to Lisa, the professor's teaching assistant, that Burnside was hardest on the students she most liked.
Burnside had her reasons. For her there was no gray area as far as students were concerned. Either a student was a worthless, lazy, drunken partier (which in Burnside's mind constituted about 98% of all university students), or a student was one of the few who actually had some respectability and was worth working with. The only way to obtain Burnside's respect was to consistently work hard, and work well, in the one subject that had any relevance, economics. Burnside dismissed everything else as "fluff". She would have, for example, dismissed Suzanne as an "art flake".
Amy's life would change if she took the two classes. They would fill up her Spring semester and make her day-to-day life considerably less enjoyable. Amy's character would be tested, because she was not good at math and would have to overcome that deficiency to pass the classes. The thought of her character being tested scared Amy, because the last time her character was tested, she did not do too well.
What would make these classes even harder is that Wendy would not be enrolled with Amy. Wendy had declared accounting as her major. Being the only child of her parents, she would have to take over the family business. Wendy had explained to Amy that it was only with reluctance that her parents had sent her to college, and that was only because there was no son available to take over when they retired. Wendy's father had to settle on educating a daughter to take over. Wendy had decided that for her accounting was more relevant than economics would be. Ultimately she would have to major in business administration, but she wanted to understand the numbers before looking at the over-all picture of her father's business.
Wendy insisted, however, that she would be available to help Amy with the math portion of Burnside's classes. Amy wondered if Wendy really understood how much help she would need. Wendy responded. "Don't worry about that. My course load won't be really bad till next fall. I'll help you."
Amy sighed. She wanted the major. She wanted the understanding it would give her. At least, she thought, if I don't pass Burnside's two classes I'll know right away that I can't handle it, and I'll have time to switch to something else.
An hour before the end of the final day to turn in the class schedule request, Amy filled in the last two lines:
ECON-288a. 6-HR INTL DEV 20TH CENT MWF 0900-1100 BURNSIDE
ECON-294a. 3-HR THEORY OF INT DEV MWF 1300-1400 BURNSIDE
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Unlike most students, Amy no longer had to worry about paying for her classes. Just before Christmas Suzanne handed her a cashier's check for her part in the photo shoot in November. Amy looked at the check, dumbfounded.
"Suzanne, is this right?"
"Yes, it's right. It's a fourth of the money from the photo shoot. There will be a couple more checks once the books hit the shelves. They think I have a major success with your pictures here."
Amy deposited the check in her account and asked Suzanne to take her to see Robert. She wondered what to do with the money. She was smart enough to realize that, as a 19-year old, she was clueless.
When she approached Robert with her situation, he was gratified that Amy had matured enough to not think she had all the answers when it came to handling her modeling money. Robert was smart enough to realize that he did not have all the answers either, so he and Amy visited his financial advisor.
Amy, when presented with investment options, went with a conservative strategy and a very diversified portfolio, with emphasis on security over risk. She set aside the cash that she would need over the next three years, calculated to meet her expected expenses, as well as what she was likely to have to pay in taxes next year. She would forget about the rest of her money until graduation. That would be for graduate school and beyond.
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Suzanne did not face the dilemma concerning what to do about her portion of the money from the photo shoot. Some of it she could spend easily enough on new equipment. She made plans to buy a new car and replace the lemon she was driving now. She needed something that would be practical for her work, either a small SUV or a minivan. There were college debts she could pay off. She could finish paying off her furniture. There were credit card bills to pay off. The morning before Christmas she gave herself a present of sorts, the satisfaction of writing a series of checks that would, for the first time in her life since graduating from high school, get her out of debt. The rest of her money simply went into a bank account in anticipation of her expenses for the Spring Semester, which would be her last as a graduate student.
