Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62203
Continued from page 45 formance, their participation in school activities, their recom- mendation letters, and the way they present themselves in their application essay. Students accepted into the program enjoy an all-expens- es-paid week living on campus, learning business basics, attending skill-building workshops, and visiting summer busi- ness school classes in which the day's lecture is tailored to a topic they can understand. They're also divided into teams where they can put their new skills into practice designing an advertising campaign competition. ■ TCU's Neeley School of Business has offered its weeklong summer entrepreneurship camp for three years. The pro- gram—called Frog Biz after the school's frog mascot—is designed to teach 24 high school juniors the basics of entre- preneurship. During the classes, students learn about the characteristics of entrepreneurs, how to determine opportuni- ty and recognition, feasibility analysis, marketing principles, funding, the various legal forms of business, how to negoti- ate, and how to design a business plan. While TCU is looking for a good ethnic and gender mix, the Commerce Summer Camp that is decidedly local, as it con- centrates on interesting inner-city kids in IT-oriented busi- ness. To recruit students, the school relies heavily on mem- bers of the steering committee who work at or have close ties to the urban schools. "We tell them what kinds of kids we're looking for, and we emphasize that they have to be willing to make a commitment to the ten weeks of the camp," says asso- ciate dean Thomas Anderson, who runs the program. After the school reps identify promising candidates, Anderson meets with them and their parents to discuss the demands and benefits of the program. By contrast, word of mouth is the most effective method used to promote the Julian Krinsky Camps and Programs, which have been held for about ten years and are well-known throughout the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area. Founder Julian Krinsky conducts business camps for The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, The Fox School of camp is not specifically aimed at minorities. "Because students have to apply to get in, there's a prestige aspect to the pro- gram," says program director Steve Mueller. "So we tend to get the fast-track students, the high achievers. Part of our criteria for selection is to find those who have expressed specific inter- est in entrepreneurship or owning their own businesses." each university, each camp is built around a business plan. Teams of five or six students form a business and assign them- selves roles such as spokesperson, CFO, or head of research and development. As the kids create a product and decide how to bring it to market, they learn the basics of accounting, entrepreneurship, and leadership. At the end of the camp, the students present their plans in a judged competition. 46 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 ■ Business is only one of the summer options offered by the Julian Krinsky Camps and Programs, which also have pro- vided sports camps for about ten years. Program founder Julian Krinsky currently runs summer business camps for the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Haverford College, all in the Philadelphia area. Krinsky's camps, which range from three- to four-week programs, often draw stu- dents who are budding businesspeople in their own right. "More than half have small portfolios themselves, and anoth- er portion have started their own businesses," says Krinsky. Although Krinsky puts together a slightly different camp for Detroit public high school student Christie Young with her supervisor, Ben Clarke, at Ford Motor Company, where she completed a ten-week internship as part of the E-Commerce Summer Camp.