On March 7, Economics Challenge registered its team members for the upcoming Governor’s Challenge in Economics and Personal Finance, hoping to continue the team’s victory last year.

The competition, which is open to all high school students in Virginia, promotes awareness in economics and finance by encouraging students to showcase their knowledge in its two divisions, Personal Finance and Economics.  Jefferson will be participating in the two subdivisions of the Economics division, which are Adam Smith and David Ricardo.

“The club members were ranked based on the sum of their quiz scores and team qualification exam,” senior Catherine Shi said. “The highest ranking members were chosen for the team.”

The team members of the David Ricardo division are seniors Victoria Li and David Zhao and freshmen Shomik Ghose and Jami Park. The members of the Adam Smith division are seniors Parth Chopra, Jason Huang, Shi and Richard Wang, juniors Ani Chandrabhatla and sophomores Matt Huo, Danny Wang and Jeffrey Xia.

The teams will be taking the first portion of the competition, which is an online exam consisting of 30 questions, on March 24. The 12 highest-ranking teams of the online exam will be eligible to compete in the Championship competition, which will be held on April 9.

“My parents always advised me to pick a future that was related to economics and finance,” Shi said. “However, I did not take their suggestion seriously until I visited Shanghai, a large financial center, and realized that I could see myself in this kind of place in the future.”

By participating in the challenge, the club hopes to emphasize the increasing significance of economics in the society.

“I think being aware of economics is important, because it has an influence on our everyday lives even though we may not necessarily realize it now,” Shi said.