Professors...Incorporate the iOme Challenge into Your Classroom or Club!

At the start of the second semester 2019, Professor Emanuel Oliveira gave the students in his Economics Club at Michigan Technological University an announcement for the iOme Challenge. He consulted his students about participating in the competition, and was pleasantly surprised when a group of four students “accepted the challenge.” The contest deadline was in a few months, but as Oliveira noted: “the lure of competition was too much.”

The four students formed a team and mapped out a comprehensive policy proposal to change the nation’s social insurance and retirement savings plans. Working with Professor Oliveira as their advisor, they divided up subject areas among themselves, and set to work on the details of the economics, finance and personal savings vehicles that supported their ideas for expanded savings and greater economic equity.

Their submission was chosen as the winning essay and they were invited to Washington, DC to visit policy makers on Capitol Hill and present their paper before an audience of financial and social insurance experts at a policy symposium. They also won a monetary award of $5,000 and their advisor was awarded $1,500.

For Oliveira and his students, participating in iOme has been a transformative experience. Student winners of this annual competition often say it was one of the best experiences of their undergraduate careers.

Whether you teach Political Science, Economics, Business, Finance, Film, Communication or any other discipline, or if you are an advisor to an Economics or Personal Finance Club, please consider working with students on this competition. The competition is open any student in an accredited undergraduate school in the U.S. We recommend that students work in small teams but students may work alone, and some previous winners were solo competitors!

How to Best Use iOme in Your Classroom?

Just follow these four simple steps:
  1. Visit the Annual Challenge to see this year’s essay challenge and information about the contest as soon as it becomes available.
  2. Download the iOme Intro Flyer and the iOme Announcement and discuss with your students.
  3. Have students register their team (or themselves if they are working alone) here: iOme Sign-up
  4. Contact us with questions or for additional resources and  to receive our regular updates: Contact us online or via email at info@iomechallenge.org.
Still not convinced? Check out Five Reasons Why iOme Challenge Should Be Part of Your Syllabus
"The iOme Challenge is a fantastic experience as it encourages students to develop research and writing skills early on, and then facilitates the development of presentation and interpersonal skills at the iOme forum and meetings with policy makers in DC."