If you've overheard a conversation about "the Fed" in the dining hall recently, you're not imagining things. Rate speculation has been the single biggest driver of market moves this quarter, and it's spilled over into how students here talk about their own portfolios and club stock picks.

A few students in the Investment Club pointed to the same cause: a lot of us built stock-picking habits during a period when rates were near zero and every dip got bought back within days. That playbook doesn't work the same way when borrowing costs are higher and the Fed is data-dependent instead of predictable.

"I used to just look at whether a company's product was good," said one club member. "Now I have to also ask what happens to that stock if rates go up another quarter point. That's a different kind of question."

That shift — from "is this a good company" to "is this a good company at this price, given where rates are" — is close to how professional investors think about markets all the time. It's a good habit to pick up early, even with the small amounts most of us are actually investing.