Aiming to educate business pathway students on the processes needed to manage a company, Virtual Enterprise, Business Management and Entrepreneurship classes took a trip to Cal State University San Bernardino (CSUSB) on March 5 to learn from other high school students’ startup companies. The visit introduced them to students gaining experience in the management field, and allowed them to build their understanding of the processes relevant to starting and running a company.
The Virtual Enterprise program offers students the opportunity to manage a virtual business, with every step of real management from employee salary to resource dedication and sales. The Virtual Enterprise event at CSUSB featured booths from each of about 60 competing schools, each completely managed by students with various roles within the company. Students worked together to prepare each booth– a table with products on display, and a large hanging poster to advertise their business.
“The trip was very educational because it gives you real life examples and assignments on what you could be doing in the future as an entrepreneur,” Entrepreneurship sophomore Ella Dong said. “We learned how marketing, visual design and customer communications affect your business, especially with sales.”
Being able to gain firsthand experience and learn from students in the same field, business students were given the opportunity to ask questions based on what they’ve learned in class. Learning the real steps involved to both create and manage a business gave them the knowledge, while seeing it for themselves worked to solidify overall understanding.
“[I learned] the importance of having a good plan when it comes to making a business, as well as connecting with different customers,” Business Management sophomore Cataleen Quach said. “I think it’s definitely widened my perspective on what makes an effective business and how you can engage with your customers.”
Learning the ins and outs to running a company is more than just these students’ assignments, as education on this subject is increasingly important to upcoming entrepreneurs and business owners. The swift rise and fall of so many start-up companies is one of the many things they analyze, with the long-term goal of keeping their business afloat. By managing advertisement, shipping, stock, even payrolls and salaries, they learn the real skills necessary for real world success.
“It’s one thing to learn something in a book or online. It’s another thing completely to experience it. That’s one of the most fundamental and important parts of [students] going to this event,” CTE Business Pathway teacher Lailah Gallegos said. “They see that there is real competition among people their age, and I don’t mean competition just for the sake of competing—I’m talking about creating a potential life path for themselves.”
While the main goal of the field trip to CSUSB was the experience and interaction with other student business owners, it featured competition as well. Virtual Enterprise’s company, urbag, performed within the top 10% of nationally participating high schools, winning three awards at the SoCal regional event: two silvers for banner ads and brief design and a bronze for their sales pitch.
“It was nice to see that it wasn’t just our school that was competing, and it was good to see that there were a lot of students who were actually really interested in visiting the booths and participating in the competition,” Dong said. “It was a really fun event. It was very educational.”
