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My Compounding Interest in Economics

Authored by Kayla Balban, Year 11 North Sydney Girls Student

Published on the 26 May 2026 by UNSW Business School EDI Team

During the 2026 April School Holidays, UNSW Business School welcomed Year 11 and 12 students from across Greater Western Sydney to Empower Her: From Financial Confidence to Property Ownership, a two-day workshop designed to build financial literacy, career confidence and future-focused decision-making.

Through interactive activities, real-world property ownership simulations, and conversations with leading women from business, economics, finance and the built environment, students explored the practical realities of managing money, navigating the housing market and building long-term financial wellbeing.

In the reflection below, Kayla Balban, a Year 11 student, shares her experience of the program. With honesty, humour and a genuine passion for economics, Kayla reflects on her learning from investment opportunities to monetary policy, property ownership and the confidence needed to pursue ambitious goals.

I started working when I was 13 years old.

When my first pay check of a whopping $37.09 hit my newly-opened bank account, I felt like I was standing on the first tile of an infinitely expansive path towards wealth and financial independence. A mere three hours of my time and effort were all I had to trade in for my own money that I was free to spend or save at my own discretion. 

But as I began to feel a persistent knot at the back of my throat from feeling underpaid and unable to get a job that paid above the frustratingly low junior minimum wage, I became determined to take control over my own money through investment. 

I began to delve into various clickbait videos which promised that I could be making a quixotic amount of money through things like passive income and compounding. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, which gave me ‘concepts of a plan’ and told me to attain assets and eliminate liabilities (obviously). With the almost non-existent financial literacy skills we are taught in school, I had no reliable idea how to responsibly manage my hard-earned money.

I eventually ascertained that my end goal of working as many as four jobs at a time, experimenting with the stock market, and constantly putting money into my savings was to buy my own property.

I was thoroughly aware of the extreme housing crisis in Sydney because I spend a lot of time reading news on economics and current affairs and I am privy to my older coworkers complaining about their merciless rent prices.

So, when I got the opportunity to attend the Empower Her: From Financial Confidence to Property Ownership workshop, I was beyond entranced by the possibilities of how much I could take away from the experience.

By far the best part of the 2-day workshop was the spectacular lineup of guest speakers who are outstandingly inspiring women in business: 

  • Joanna Bleakely, Senior Economic Analyst at the RBA
  • Akira Galvin, Executive Director at Enigma Property & Place
  • Betsy Westcott, CEO and Co-Founder of Millie
  • Sarah Kay, CEO of Woods Bagot and Registered Architect

I genuinely LOVE economics, and I could talk fervently for hours about the system of capitalism and the inextricable interrelatedness of economies. Joanna Bleakely presented us with an exceptionally detailed lesson on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy and how the various facets of the economy all interlink and are impacted by each other. 

The most compelling part of her presentation was the section about current economic conditions and how the ongoing conflict in the Middle East affects the Australian economy, and further how we are managing these impacts through fiscal and monetary policy.

Above all, I was captivated by Joanna’s authentic love for economics, which inspired me to contemplate the possibilities of my future career and become spectacularly optimistic for how passionate I could still be about economics 20 years in the future.

The other three amazing women joined us for a Q&A session and bestowed us with priceless wisdom from each of their unique success paths. Each of their stories were different and non-linear, which incites hope within me that there is no formula to success - instead with enough drive and diligence, anybody can get where they want to go.

The speakers’ different perspectives on the questions we asked them were invaluable to hear.

In particular, the number one thing I learned that has stuck with me and fundamentally reshaped my perspective on gender dynamics in the workforce is something that Sarah Kay mentioned which the other speakers vehemently agreed with: "women are consistently passed over for important tasks because we are more self-aware of our limits and we more meticulously consider if we are best suited to take on a large responsibility."

This is an awesome quality which highlights women’s rationality, introspection and pragmatism — that is, until the closest man takes advantage of that hesitation and swoops in with a fistful of confidence yet no more qualification or skill than the woman who doubted herself.

The message was clear: this “confidence gap”, which is not caused by any objective inferiority in performance but by women being their own harshest critics, holds women back from both achieving their full potential and receiving the recognition they deserve.

Now that I am cognizant of this systemic issue, which I find ridiculous, counterproductive, and long-standing societal expectations and gender norms, I know with emphatic conviction that I will never let self-doubt limit me.

For the remainder of the workshop, we had time to put our knowledge into practice in a fantastically immersive workshop where we worked in groups to make decisions about a hypothetical character, Zara, and her property ownership journey.

The task was designed to be realistic, and each group had different incomes and budgets based on the different career paths we chose for our ‘Zara’. We had agency to choose when to enter the property market and at what deposit percentage.

Over the course of the journey, we dealt with various uncontrollable life events that mimicked the capricious and unpredictable nature of life, and at the end we reconvened to present and justify each of our choices.

The most perplexing part of the ordeal was the rude awakening I had when I realised how expensive stamp duty and having children is!

Now, has this 2-day workshop turned me into the next Warren Buffett? Not yet.

However, this experience matched something I have always felt is missing from the school system: real-world financial education.

This event was an absolutely amazing adventure which has taught me so much about economics, the reality of female careers in business, and the countless considerations that must be made when entering the property market.

I still work 3 jobs on top of school, but the knot in my throat is no longer as severe because I feel like I have a much clearer idea of how the world works and how I can take control of my future.