Chamber offers opportunity for Alaska high school students
By Wayne Stevens
The Alaska State Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Alaska Business Week program for Alaska high school students who want to advance their leadership skills and discover their strengths in a summer program to be held at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus Aug. 8-14. Modeled after the successful and long-running Washington Business Week program, this weeklong discovery-learning program is a hands-on leadership training experience specifically designed for high school students. Whether a student knows what he or she will be doing after high school or is still considering all the options, this program increases the student’s awareness of his skills and capabilities, and helps him to develop a focus in so many ways.
The magic of this program is the direct involvement of business leaders who mentor the student companies and lead them to a winning strategy. Working with business leaders and competing with other companies, students gain hands-on management skills as they strategize their production, marketing and finance decisions, as well as respond to issues pertaining to personnel, the environment and corporate responsibility. This program transforms students as they gain confidence in themselves when facing real life business challenges.
At the end of the week, students defend their companies in front of a panel of business leaders, and they produce a product or service to be presented to potential “stockholders” for investment purposes. Jamie Rappoport was a camper at Washington Business Week last summer. She had a fun experience and discovered she was very intrigued with business. This discovery came at the right time! A few months after the program concluded, she began applying to some of the top business schools in the country. She never imagined she would end up at the school with the nation’s No. 1 entrepreneurship program. Ms. Rapport was accepted and will start classes in September at Babson College, a tiny college just outside of Boston, where the only major offered is business.
“What I know I will love most about the school is the fact that all freshmen students are required to take a course called Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship,” she said. “This course not only teaches students how to start up and run their own businesses, but in addition the school splits the students up into groups of 30 and gives each group $3,000 in real money to start a real business. All profits made by the companies are donated to a charity of their choice at the end of the school year. “If it weren’t for business week I would have never discovered my passion for business,” she added. “I would have also never realized how much I enjoyed learning in a hands on manner, if it weren’t for BizSim. BizSim was truly the experience I needed to know a school like Babson College would be perfect for me! “I just wanted to share my excitement for business with you. I also want to thank you for helping run such an amazing program …. one of the only summer camps that provides campers with inspiration and helps shape or even determine their future. Hopefully my education will pay off, and one day I will be able to make a decent income, so I can give back time and money to business week!”
The application deadline for the Alaska Business Week is July 31.
Due to the generous contributions of the Alaska Business Week inaugural sponsors, including Tesoro Alaska, BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Icicle Seafoods, State Farm, the Alaska Credit Union League, Era Alaska, Totem Ocean Trailer Express, the Alaska Railroad Corp., Aadlandflint, Alaska Airlines, and Golden Valley Electric Association, a reduced tuition for the weeklong program is $325, which includes housing, food, program materials and activity fees. Scholarships are available.
For those students coming from outside Anchorage, Era Alaska is providing 20 round-trip tickets to qualifying students from communities served on its route, and a 25 percent discount for participants who may not apply in time for the free tickets.
For Anchorage area students, the Alaska Railroad is offering free round-trip transportation from Anchorage to assist students traveling to the Alaska Business Week program in Fairbanks. The train leaves Anchorage Aug. 7 and returns Aug. 14.
Many scholarships are available for students, and applying for them is as easy as filling out the application available online at www.alaskachamber.com.
Wayne Stevens is the executive director of the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce.