Students Get a Taste of the Entrepreneurial World
Career Paths Now a Little Clearer for High Schoolers and College Students
BY NATASHA LEE
Staff Writer
As CEO of World Wide Airlines, Mark Jacob is under a lot of pressure. Approving marketing plans, maintaining employee motivation and generating revenue can be particularly demanding.
“I don’t like the stress I go under when I do this, but it’s going to happen later on though,” said Jacob , when he grows up, that is.
A sophomore at Mira Mesa High School, Jacob has a few years left to decide his career path, but for now he is one of several hundred high school students participating in Virtual Enterprise, an international program where a simulated business is created, managed and operated by students.
Nine San Diego County high schools run 16 companies differing in industry from One Nightstand, a furniture retailer to Torture Tattoo/Body Piercing/Jewelry.
The goal is for students to learn the foundations of business through entrepreneurship.
Students participate in all aspects of a start-up company beginning with selecting service and product, to developing marketing and sales strategies, to payroll.
To generate revenues and sales, VE companies trade and transact with a nationwide network of other student-run businesses via the Internet and through trade fairs.
So parallel is VE to the real world that students are hired for positions, such as CEO and creative director, based on their cover letters, resumes and interview performance conducted by a panel of local business professionals.
Students even have to go before a bank loan board to seek approval for start-up funding.
Now in its second year at San Diego County schools, the program was introduced to Brenda Nason, a Hoover High School business teacher and San Diego VE coordinator at a school-to-career conference.
“I’d heard so many good things about it, and it’s so empowering to students. It builds their confidence and motivates them to find ways for their business to meet ends,” she said.
Working independently of their teachers, who are referred to as consultants rather than instructors, students are able to develop industry-specific business skills and more importantly learn how to interact with their peers and work as a team.
“I’ve learned how to manage people and not be so rude , it’s definitely helped my speaking skills. I was really shy before I took this class and now I’m not shy at all,” said Sarah Goldbaum, a senior at El Cajon Valley High School and CEO of Eclectic Outfitters, a hip-hop/surfer/skater apparel store that’s generated more than $20,000 in sales.
“Too often we ask students questions we already know the answers to, but here they learn to find their own answers. It’s active learning versus passive learning,” said Mike Fowler, a curriculum specialist for the Grossmont Union High School District.
Fowler serves as a liaison between the business community to set up workshops and advisory sessions for his district’s six VE companies.
Local professionals are brought in to serve as mentors and introduce students to business operations through workshops that cover business etiquette to writing an employee manual.
Michael Petracca, a sales engineer with Expanets, Inc. and advisory council member for the Schools to Career program at El Cajon Valley High School devotes several hours a month prepping Eclectic Outfitters employees on sales ethics and communicative body language.
“Any child that enters this seriously will be prepared to enter a business environment, and will be more successful,” he said.
Over the last several years applied learning programs, particularly entrepreneurial-emphasized, have been gaining momentum in secondary schools, but also colleges and universities.
Since 1999, San Diego State University has offered the Qualcomm-sponsored Social Entrepreneur Internship that pairs 30 MBA students with one of 40 participating nonprofit organizations.
The 150-hour internship gives graduate students the opportunity to utilize business skills that include anything from writing grant proposals to marketing feasibility analysis.
The idea is to dismiss the concept that nonprofit means “no profit” and encourage students to pursue careers in the industry.
“It really gives them (students) a strong sense that not-for-profits are not as uniquely different from for-profits as they assumed they were,” said Sanford Ehrlich, executive director for the program.
Guided by mentors from Qualcomm Inc., students examine how nonprofits operate effectively, familiarize themselves with government regulations and develop ways to better serve an organization’s constituents.
As the number of nonprofit organizations increases and government involvement decreases, it’s important to have the right leadership, said Sue Schaffner, managing director for the North County Repertory Theatre, a program participant.
“The fact San Diego State and Qualcomm recognize this helps us in making people recognize that nonprofits are in fact corporations,” Schaffner said.
Mariana Sandoval Tress, an intern with Creating Entrepreneur Opportunities and an international business major, agreed, saying the internship helped her recognize that her corporate business skills could cross over.
“The channels and sources for capital budgeting may differ, but in the end the need for capital is equally important and challenging in both types of organizations,” she said.
