15-Week Syllabus

A semester course using How to Be an Adult. Adapt freely — the license permits it.

Format assumed: one 150-minute session or two 75-minute sessions per week.

Course description

Practical skills for independent adult life: personal finance, housing, healthcare navigation, employment, legal rights, and civic participation. Students build a personal reference document — an "Adult Life Operating System" — containing their own information organized by domain.

Prerequisites: none. This course assumes no prior knowledge of any topic covered.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. Read and interpret a pay stub, W-2, lease, Explanation of Benefits, medical bill, and credit report
2. Construct a working budget based on net income, including irregular expenses
3. Evaluate insurance and health plan options against their own circumstances
4. Apply consumer, tenant, and employment protections to specific situations
5. Execute key procedures: disputing a credit error, appealing a denial, negotiating a bill or salary, filing a complaint
6. Identify predatory financial products and common scams
7. Locate appropriate resources — legal aid, benefits, crisis services — for a given problem
8. Produce a complete personal operations document

Required materials

Textbook: How to Be an Adult — free, online, and printable. No purchase required.

Students should bring: a device or notebook, and (privately, for their own use) access to their own documents where applicable.

Grading

Privacy policy — read this in week one: Assignments involving your personal financial or medical information are for your own use. You will submit evidence that the work was completed — a redacted document, a structural summary, or a signed attestation — never the underlying figures. Your financial situation is not part of your grade.

Support and crisis resources

On the syllabus, repeated on the LMS, and mentioned aloud in weeks 1, 8, and 15.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE

UNIT 1 — MONEY (Weeks 1–5)

Week 1 — Orientation and Your Income

Read: Introduction, How to Use This Book, Ch. 1

In class: - Course intro, privacy policy, crisis resources - Discussion: "What's something you had to figure out on your own that nobody taught you?" (low-stakes, sets the tone) - Activity: Annotated Pay Stub — decode a sample stub line by line

Exercises due next week: 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 (run the withholding estimator), 1.7 (SSA account)

★ OS Checkpoint 1: Income and Employment

Week 2 — Budgeting and Banking

Read: Ch. 2, Ch. 3

In class: - The triage exercise: which bills to pay when you can't pay all of them - Activity: The Irregular Expense Fund — students build their own list - Activity: Fee Hunt — find every fee in a sample bank statement - Tipping norms — genuinely useful, and it generates good discussion

Exercises: 2.1, 2.3, 2.8 (subscription audit), 2.9 (irregular fund), 3.1 (fee audit), 3.3 (opt out of overdraft)

★ OS Checkpoint 2: Budget and Banking

Week 3 — Credit

Read: Ch. 4

In class: - Activity: Annotated Credit Report — walk through a sample report and find the errors - Activity: The Score Simulator — students calculate what the same car loan costs at 780 vs. 640 - Credit repair scams: what CROA prohibits and why the ads exist - Guest speaker (recommended): nonprofit credit counselor (NFCC)

Exercises: 4.1 (pull all three reports), 4.3 (find statement closing dates), 4.8 (freeze credit), 4.9 (autopay)

★ OS Checkpoint 3: Credit

Week 4 — Debt

Read: Ch. 5

In class: - Activity: The Minimum Payment Trap — students run the numbers themselves - Activity: Avalanche vs. Snowball — same debts, both methods, compare - Role-play: The collector call — practice the validation script - Predatory lending walkthrough: payday, title, rent-to-own, debt settlement

Exercises: 5.1 (debt table), 5.2, 5.3 (studentaid.gov), 5.7 (loan simulator), 5.4 (state SOL)

★ OS Checkpoint 4: Debt

Week 5 — Taxes, Investing, Insurance

Read: Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8

In class: - Activity: The Marginal Rate Demonstration — the single most valuable ten minutes in the course - Activity: Mock Tax Return — complete a simple 1040 from a sample W-2 - Activity: The Fee Autopsy — 0.03% vs. 1% over 30 years - Activity: Insurance Gap Analysis — what a sample person is over- and under-insured for - Guest speaker (recommended): VITA volunteer

Exercises: 6.1, 6.6 (IRS account), 7.1 (find your match), 7.7 (open a Roth IRA), 8.1 (read declarations pages), 8.5a (renters insurance)

★ OS Checkpoint 5: Taxes, Investments, Insurance Inventory

UNIT 2 — HOUSING (Weeks 6–7)

Week 6 — Finding a Place and Reading a Lease

Read: Ch. 9, Ch. 10

In class: - Activity: Spot the Rental Scam — five listings, identify the fakes - Activity: Annotated Lease — read a real lease clause by clause; find the unenforceable provisions - Activity: Verify the Owner — students look up a property on the county assessor site, live - Guest speaker (recommended): legal aid attorney or tenant organizer

Exercises: 9.1 (housing budget), 9.6 (application packet), 10.1 (state handbook), 10.2 (deposit deadline), 10.4 (save legal aid number)

★ OS Checkpoint 6: Housing

Week 7 — Setup, Maintenance, and Moving

Read: Ch. 11, 12, 13, 14

In class: - Demonstration: Basic repairs — toilet flapper, breaker reset, drain clearing (a physical demo if possible; video otherwise) - Activity: The Deposit Defense — sample move-in and move-out photos; identify wear vs. damage - Activity: Shutoff Scavenger Hunt — students locate their own and photograph them - Laundry symbols and the 90-minute cleaning routine

Exercises: 11.1 (shutoffs), 11.2 (test detectors), 12.6 (toilet test), 12.11 (dryer vent), 14.2 (deposit deadline)

MIDTERM ASSESSMENT — applied scenario set (see Rubrics)

UNIT 3 — HEALTHCARE (Weeks 8–9)

Week 8 — Health Insurance and Navigating Care

Read: Ch. 15, Ch. 16

In class: - Activity: Plan Comparison — three real plans, one health profile; which is best and why - Activity: The Six Numbers — decode a Summary of Benefits and Coverage - Activity: ER, Urgent Care, or Wait? — ten scenarios, decision tree - Free preventive care and the coding trap

Exercises: 15.1 (your six numbers), 15.2 (worst case), 16.1 (find your urgent care), 16.6 (get a PCP)

★ OS Checkpoint 7: Health

Week 9 — Medical Bills and Mental Health

Read: Ch. 17, Ch. 18

⚠ Content note: Chapter 18 covers suicide and self-harm. Give advance notice, repeat crisis resources, and provide the resource handout.

In class: - Activity: The $6,445 Bill — students work the full eight-step process on a real sample bill with planted errors - Role-play: The negotiation call — students take turns as patient and billing rep - Mental health: how to find a provider, what things cost, what's free - Guest speaker (recommended): hospital patient advocate; campus counseling

Exercises: 17.7 (request itemized bills), 17.12 (Medicare rate lookup), 18.2 (find your EAP), 18.13 (bad-day plan)

UNIT 4 — CAREER (Weeks 10–12)

Week 10 — Getting Hired and Interviewing

Read: Ch. 19, Ch. 20

In class: - Activity: Duty to Accomplishment — students rewrite three résumé bullets, peer review - Activity: Spot the Job Scam - Mock interviews in pairs, recorded if possible, with structured peer feedback - Guest speaker (recommended): recruiter or HR professional

Exercises: 19.1, 19.6 (rewrite résumé), 19.7 (LinkedIn), 20.1 (90-second intro), 20.5 (eight STAR stories)

Week 11 — First Job and Negotiation

Read: Ch. 21, Ch. 22

In class: - ★ Activity: Salary Negotiation Role-Play — the highest-value activity in the course. Students negotiate a scripted offer; instructor or peer plays a resistant hiring manager. Run it twice — most students collapse the first time. - Activity: Practice the Silence — say the number, then four seconds of nothing. Genuinely hard, genuinely learnable. - Activity: Read the Contract — a sample offer letter with a non-compete, IP assignment, arbitration, and a repayment clause - Market rate research, live

Exercises: 22.1 (market rate from three sources), 22.5 (rehearse the script), 21.1 (start accomplishment log), 21.8 (read your agreement)

★ OS Checkpoint 8: Career

Week 12 — Leaving a Job; Food and Health

Read: Ch. 23, Ch. 24, Ch. 25

In class: - Unemployment, COBRA vs. marketplace, and the 401(k) cash-out math - Activity: The Cash-Out Cost — $20,000 at 30, cashed out vs. rolled over - Activity: Cook Something — if you have a kitchen, make one of the ten meals. If not, a knife-skills and food-safety demo. - Evidence vs. marketing in nutrition and supplements

Exercises: 23.1 (vesting dates), 23.10 (price COBRA vs. marketplace), 24.8 (roast vegetables), 25.1 (audit supplements)

UNIT 5 — RIGHTS, SAFETY, AND LIFE (Weeks 13–15)

Week 13 — Transportation and Legal Rights

Read: Ch. 26, Ch. 27, Ch. 28

In class: - ★ Activity: The Dealership Simulation — students negotiate a car purchase against an instructor playing a trained salesperson who asks "what monthly payment are you looking for?" Debrief on what happened. - Activity: Warning Light Triage - Activity: Know Your Rights Scenarios — ten situations, which agency, which deadline - Practice out loud: the police script and the small claims process - Guest speaker (recommended): legal aid attorney

Exercises: 26.5 (get pre-approved), 27.1 (five-minute car check), 28.1 (find legal aid), 28.11 (practice the script)

Week 14 — Civics, Documents, Emergencies, Digital

Read: Ch. 29, Ch. 30, Ch. 31, Ch. 32

In class: - Activity: Your Actual Ballot — students look up their real ballot at Ballotpedia; count how many races they can identify - Activity: Register to Vote — live, in class, for anyone eligible and not registered - Activity: Document Triage — what would you lose in a fire? - ★ Activity: Password Manager Setup — install it, in class, together. This produces the highest completion rate of any exercise in the book. - Activity: Spot the Phishing Email — ten samples - CPR demonstration (Red Cross or campus EMS if available)

Exercises: 29.1 (check registration), 30.8 (healthcare proxy), 31.5 (emergency kit), 32.2 (password manager), 32.7 (freeze credit if not done in week 3)

Week 15 — Relationships, Life Design, and Closing

Read: Ch. 33, 34, 35, 36, 37

⚠ Content note: Chapter 35 covers domestic violence. Advance notice; resource handout.

In class: - Activity: The Difficult Conversation — students write the four-part structure for a real conversation they're avoiding (private), then practice with a scripted scenario (public) - Activity: Practice Saying No — out loud, in pairs, repeatedly - Money conversations in relationships; the legal documents unmarried couples need - Closing discussion: "What's the one thing from this course you'll actually use?" - Read Chapter 37 aloud, or the last three paragraphs

FINAL: Operating System due + final applied assessment

Assignment summary

Notes on sequencing

Why money first: money problems compound and cascade into everything else. A student who fixes their credit in week 3 has a better housing outcome in week 6.

Why the negotiation session is in week 11: students need the confidence built by weeks 1–10 before they'll practice asking for money. Running it earlier produces worse engagement.

Why the password manager is done in class: because it has a high abandonment rate as homework and a very high completion rate when done together. The same is true of freezing credit. For high-value, low-difficulty, high-avoidance tasks, do them in the room.

If you're short on time, the chapters with the highest value-per-minute for most students are: 1, 2, 4, 15, 22, and 32.

See also: Instructor's Guide · In-Class Activities · Rubrics