Since the COVID-19 pandemic began back in March and shut down schools, field trips have remained almost nonexistent for schools in the United States. Recently, virtual field trips have replaced their in-person counterparts. These are usually held on Zoom or other video-sharing websites.

Some of Mr. Cuttle’s students recently attended one of these virtual field trips hosted by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Empower Your Future program aimed at young adults, particularly young women with an interest in economics and finance.

“The ‘Empower Your Future’ Zoom meeting was a virtual forum led by women in finance and economics.  The target audience was young women that have a desire to learn more about degrees and career opportunities in finance and economics and to hear from local female professionals who are building successful careers in these fields,” explained Cuttle.

The program uses a five step program with goals at each step. The first step is the keynote: What is your superpower? This step was conducted by Jackie Morgan from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Next, speakers share about the possibilities with a degree in economics, and this was conducted by Sheena Murray, an assistant professor at UTC’s Gary W. Rollins College of Business. After the uses of an economic degree were explored, a panel discussion was conducted, showing why it is important for women to study economics. Then, speakers explored the opportunities that arise with a financial degree. To end the presentation, professors from the Gary W. Rollins College of Business discussed UTC’s SMILE Fund and all of its benefits.

Other speakers included Miranda Carr from the Trust Company of Tennessee, Myriam Quispe-Agnoli from Mercer University, Amnah Shah from AHS Consulting Inc., and Dr. Leonora Brown, an assistant professor of economics.

“It was a great virtual field trip overall, but not something I would be interested in doing for the future. They did show multiple departments of finance and research. They talked about classes you could take and got feedback and advice from the top researchers and professors to students advancing in finance,” expressed Freshman Taylor Brock, one of the attendees of the virtual field trip.

Virtual field trips like this are a great tool for schools as the world still deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Students can still experience field trips while staying safe.