“Entrepreneurship education is empowering”: School of Business equips high school students with fundamentals of business ownership
Dozens of high school students from Hudson Valley school districts visited the SUNY New Paltz campus on Dec. 6 for a High School Entrepreneurship Session, a day of lessons and hands-on workshops led by School of Business faculty who specialize in business ownership and management.
Interest in business and entrepreneurship among young people has risen for years, and programs like the High School Entrepreneurship Session show promise in giving youth a platform to hone their skills while building a sustainable future for themselves.
“It takes a community to build up small businesses, but this is the work that can help bring people out of poverty. It starts with youth education and advocating for youth,” said Danny Potocki, adjunct faculty in entrepreneurship and management, and managing partner at Finis Ventures in White Plains, New York. “I’m interested in helping people understand that entrepreneurship education is empowering.”
Working with faculty experts on entrepreneurship, the visiting students were led through an all-day program touching on core entrepreneurial fundamentals like team management, marketing and customer development.
“This experience raises the standard of my classroom and makes my students want to compete with each other,” said Ian Cooper, a business education teacher at Saugerties High School, one of the cohorts who attended the session. “It is my hope that my students can see SUNY New Paltz as a viable option to continue their business education.”
The day concluded with the students showing what they’d learned by giving presentations of their own startup concepts to a panel of business and community leaders, who awarded prizes based on the projects’ overall viability, potential profitability and social & environmental impact.
Many of the students who participated in this event said they’d never before been on a university campus, and never learned directly from a higher education professor. Some initiated the application process to enroll at New Paltz while they were on campus.
“We hope this program can open up new paths to business ownership through our core fundamentals,” said Potocki. “Great college entrepreneurship programs must start early. If we convene something to start that education pathway, it’s going to get bigger because we are advocating and supporting youth education.”