Short Term Summer Camp
Teens get head start learning about entrepreneurship in the business, computer world. Overnight camp isn't what it used to be. Two programs locally this season have teenagers building business plans instead of camp fires. Camp $ tart-Up, a two-week session at Skidmore College, is hosting 24 girls from across the country. In another program, 18 students at Albany High School are immersed for seven days in computer-based training called BizTech.
Thirteen-year-old Sarah Degni of Manhattan has been to horseback-riding and drama camps. But she found some of the campers to be snobs -- in contrast to what she's liking about the atmosphere at Camp $ tart-Up. ''I didn't think it would be so supportive,'' she said after a brainstorming session on what it would take to start a business selling fresh brownies from a cart in a shopping mall. For starters, the group figured they would need money for mall rent, access to a commercial kitchen and maybe even a food-vending license.
At the program in Saratoga Springs, the mission is to nurture girls' confidence as much as it is to teach them the basics of business. Girls need this kind of support in a setting without boys present because boys still tend to get a disproportionate share of attention in a mixed-gender classroom setting, said director Jeannette Oppedisano, a faculty member at Skidmore whose field of expertise is women's entrepreneurship. Cooperation, positive reinforcement and equality are stressed throughout the curriculum -- whether the girls are exploring ideas for businesses, testing names or working through the math needed to figure operational costs.
''I can't really tell who is younger and who is older. It doesn't really matter,'' said Neith Sanyika of Los Angeles, who is 18 and a few weeks away from entering college to study fashion-marketing. Staffers have been teaching business terms to campers -- many haven't had business classes -- and reinforcing math skills, but Oppedisano has found the girls already know their way around computers. ''We didn't have to show them how to use e-mail or get on the Internet. We just had to show them some business sites,'' she said.
Sanyika was determined to attend Camp $ tart-Up because her research showed it offered the best program she could find. Her essay on her drive to succeed in the business world won her a scholarship to cover the $ 1,600 tuition and expenses. The program is the brainchild of financial writer Joline Godfrey -- author of ''No More Frogs To Kiss'' -- and has been hosted at other schools across the country. This is the first year at Skidmore.
This is the first year for BizTech as well. Sponsored by the New York Institute of Entrepreneurship and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Albany County, participation is free. The session, which started Thursday, will run weekdays from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. through Friday. Organizers lined up financial help from several groups, including the 4-H Foundation.
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