Your Fed Your Voice Profile: St. Louis Fed Student Board of Directors
[INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC]
Charice Ellis: The student board of directors is one of the best combinations you can find of ambassadorship and economic education.
Mary Hails: Young people should definitely care about what the Federal Reserve does every day, because it is their future. Everyone has to handle money at some point, has to get a job, has to understand finances and budget and plan out their money and interact with this economy.
Ellis: Each year, these students come through the year shining. And they grow a great deal. It is a huge growth spurt that most of these students experience in the year. And we see it play out in our interactions with them.
Sara Brand: While serving on the student board, I learned a lot about the Federal Reserve, actually, mainly what they do and their role in our national economy.
Isha Chaudhari: And one of their biggest goals is to uphold the dual mandate, which is keeping price stability but also maintaining maximum employment.
Brand: Overseeing banks, making sure that our payment systems are efficient, and a lot of the lesser-known things that they do, I thought that was really interesting.
Ellis: One of the other things that benefits students is their exposure to some of our senior leaders.
Ric Jain: I got opportunities to network with senior executives and people that I wouldn’t normally get the opportunity to talk with. And they were really kind, approachable. They wanted to be there.
Brand: You do get a lot of professional development skills. Like, you learn what’s a good interview. You learn how to interview, what type of interview questions people might ask. There is a lot that this program offers, and it’s not just numbers and math and graphs. It’s a lot of really interesting stuff that will benefit you in your day-to-day life.
Chaudhari: I’ve learned so much about the Fed. And it sparked a new interest for me, which I would love to explore in my college career.
[INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC]
Your Fed, Your Voice Profile: St. Louis Fed Student Board of Directors
Each year, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis selects 20 impressive high school students for its Student Board of Directors Program—a dynamic opportunity to join the conversation about the economy.
In this Your Fed, Your Voice video, student directors talk about their experiences with the St. Louis Fed, including insights gained from conversations with Bank employees. Program manager Charice Ellis also reflects on the growth she sees in participants from year to year. Ellis partners with senior economic education specialist Andrea Caceres-Santamaria to support the program.
The St. Louis Fed accepts applications for the Student Board of Directors Program each year.