Learning to “adult” has never been easier, thanks to new Warrington class

Clinical Professor Steve Tufts and student Kierra Marquis team up to share how the class came to be and why students should consider taking it.

Dr. Steve Tufts, Clinical Professor, Department of Marketing

Over the course of the fall 2019 semester, I received several inquiries from students in my sales student group, GatorSLAM, about topics they would soon encounter once they graduated from the University of Florida. The topics ranged from how to create a personal budget to how to start an investment account and beyond.

Eventually, I agreed to meet with the students regularly to go over these kinds of topics. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our meetings from March 2020 on, but due to popular demand, the students convinced me to resume our meetings in the spring of 2021.

In its place, we created an independent study course, which initially included 16 students. The course evaluations were unanimously favorable, and the students began to recommend the course to others. I even received several favorable comments from parents, some who somewhat jokingly asked if they could watch the course via Zoom.

In May 2021, the course became an official class. While we await a permanent course number assignment, it is being taught under MAR4905 Life Transitions (“Adulting”) Independent Study.

If you’re interested in learning more about topics that you’ll undoubtably face upon leaving the University of Florida, I invite you to consider taking Life Transitions. But don’t just take it from me. Read on from one of my former students about how the course helped prepare her for her post-UF life.

Kierra Marquis, BS Industrial and Systems Engineering ’22

The idea of leaving the familiar, comfortable bubble I’ve created here at the University of Florida is totally unsettling. A new city? Uncharted waters? The pressures of adulting? No, thank you.

I am a senior studying industrial and systems engineering graduating this spring, and I recently took a 1 credit class with Dr. Steve Tufts in the Warrington College of Business that totally transformed the way I feel about navigating adulthood. 

I heard chatter about a so called “Life Transitions” course over lunch with some friends who are studying at Warrington, and they had nicknamed the class “Adulting”. Did I have room in my schedule? No, but the name was intriguing so I decide to secure a spot anyways. Turns out, I am now the one starting the chatter and convincing everyone I know to find room in their schedules.

This class gives you a road map for navigating some of life’s most essential, but under taught skills. Each week we dive into a new series of relevant topics you that you won’t be taught anywhere else. Some of my favorites included budgeting, investing, buying a home and buying a car. We also discussed how to be wise with credit cards, how taxes work, insurance, mortgages, small business loans, leases, employee benefits, credit score, cost of capital, you name it. The class was interactive, applicable and helped answer questions I didn’t even know I had! 

I usually leave class in the classroom (because my engineering lessons in thermodynamics and differential equations don’t make for riveting dinner conversations) but I found myself wanting to debrief with everybody. My parents are convinced there has to be a way for them to enroll. This class was a highlight of my semester and now my notes will serve as a life instruction manual for years to come.

This spring I will graduate with over 124 credits of highly technical information, and 1 very relevant credit of life skills I have already started leveraging. In the spring of 2022, the Heavener School of Business is opening additional seats. I will leave you with two suggestions: one, enroll in this class, and two, ignore the fancy course title and just call it “adulting”.