Six teams of UTAR students secured spots in the top 20 standings in the Jelajah Bijak Wang 2023/2024. Among the six teams was the “Golden Hunters”, who won second place in the programme, walking away with a cash prize of RM3,000 in the grand finale. The team consisted of Bachelor of Finance (Honours) students Beh Jie Ying, Goon Tsu Ying, Tai Yee Ling, and Wong Kang Jun; and Bachelor of Business Administration (Honours) in Logistics and Supply Chain Management student Beh Jie Hong.

The Jelajah Bijak Wang 2023/2024 received a total of 6,200 student participations from 21 higher learning institutions across Malaysia.

A total of 11 teams (55 UTAR students) successfully entered the top 50 standings in the Jelajah Bijak Wang 2023/2024, which gave them the eligibility to participate in the final challenge, “Treasure Hunt”. Led by Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) Head of Department of Banking and Risk Management Mr Chong Tun Pin, the six teams shined in the limelight as they secured spots in the top 20 standings in the final challenge.

The details of the six teams are as follows:

Jelajah Bijak Wang 2023/2024 is a financial education programme, organised by the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) and Credit Counselling and Debt Management Agency (AKPK), in collaboration with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). With the theme ‘Prosper Today, Thrive Tomorrow’, Jelajah Bijak Wang 2023/2024 began from October 2023 to February 2024. The programme aimed at helping Malaysian youths improve their financial literacy with an assortment of e-classes, online quizzes, games, and challenges, and help them enjoy the learning process while learning to make informed financial decisions.

The “Treasure Hunt” challenge was organised on 23 and 24 February 2024 at UPM, Serdang Campus. It tasked the participants with the mission to earn the highest money based on a set amount of tokens given. The participants were encouraged to plan their token investments in various games in a limited time. With that, the Golden Hunters team was able to earn RM77,000 (in-game mock currency) based on their tokens earned, with the champion team leading the final challenge with RM80,000.

Regarding the final challenge, the leader of the Golden Hunters team, Beh Jie Ying remarked, “I felt like giving up at first after listening to the briefing because we realised the challenge was going to be difficult. However, we took a break to discuss strategy and decided to play a level four game using most of our tokens. Though we were just one point away from winning RM25,000, we still earned RM20,000 in the game. From there, we persevered by continuing playing level three and four games using the minimum time, until we finally reached the final amount, RM77,000.”

The members of the Golden Hunters team also shared their thoughts on the programme’s experience. Beh Jie Ying said, “In the beginning, my main reason to participate in the Jelajah Bijak Wang 2023/2024 was to experience the fun of the treasure hunt challenge and also to widen my experience in a competition with my friends. However, as the programme concluded, I learned the importance and risk of investment. This is because the “Treasure Hunt” mimicked investment. It gets highly risky as more resources are involved, but the rewards also get higher. Not to mention, I also learned to develop financial plans and communicate efficiently with people from other organisations.”

She added, “The members of our team were very cooperative and hardworking. We opened the Gametize app every day to check the availability of new quizzes for the “Online Gamification” challenge. We were ranked sixth in the challenge, as the result of everyone’s effort. To me, the most important thing was teamwork; without my teammates, I would have not won the prize. I am glad to have won second place in this programme with my teammates. Golden Hunters is the best!”

Goon Tsu Ying said, “I was excited to advance to the finale of the programme. I believe our team won second place because of our good teamwork. Each of us had varying skills, which resulted in a good team when combined. When we first entered the programme, we only aimed to achieve a spot in the top 20, but our goal changed halfway to secure the top two spots instead. Achieving second place was probably the most prominent feeling I had experienced, as we put in hard work and dedication to achieve our goals together.”

She added, “I believe that programmes like this can be a great way to push yourself and learn new things because it often requires you to apply your knowledge and skills in a new way. Besides, I think that joining this programme can be a motivating force that pushes you to work harder and achieve more. They can also be a challenge that helps you to discover strengths and weaknesses.”

Tai Yee Ling said, “I joined the programme because I wanted to step outside my comfort zone, to enable myself to hone existing skills as well as learn new skills. I think our team stood out from the rest because we were cooperative and supportive. Although tired, we still had our meeting to plan the strategy the night before the final challenge, which paid off in the end. We did not expect to get second place, as our initial goal was just to enter the top 20.”

Wong Kang Jun said, “Our plan went smoothly on the day of the final challenge. We were pleasantly surprised when the results were announced because we achieved a better result than our expectation. It was a fantastic experience, some of my teammates even cried tears of joy. I would like to thank my friends for inviting me to their team as they are all very capable. Thanks to them, I am able to share the valuable experience and lessons I gained from the programme.”

He added, “I did not intend to participate in the programme initially, because it required a considerable amount of time and also a team of five people. Fortunately, my friends wanted to participate and needed one more person. Hence, I thought to myself, ‘Let’s give it a try, there’s nothing to lose,’ which led me to join as a result.”

Beh Jie Hong said, “I thought we would not ‘survive’ until the final challenge, as there were over 20 universities taking part in this programme. As the programme progressed, I learned to plan and spend my financial resources wisely. Besides, my hope brightened up again as we were consistent in our performance based on the leaderboard. It was also my first time participating in a competition at another university. The games included in the final challenge were interesting, but I had never played them before. Nonetheless, we tried our best to complete the games we had chosen; and luckily, we won the second place.”

He added, “I was filled with hesitation when my friends asked me to join the programme because I am not a student in the Finance programme. I worried that I had insufficient knowledge on finance, which could possibly lead our team to fall short in the programme. However, after much consideration, I decided to take part in the programme, as I also hope to learn more skills that I cannot learn from my classes.”

The members of Golden Hunters also expressed their gratitude to the organisers, LIAM, AKPK, and UPM, for providing them with the opportunity to learn about personal finance and career planning.