It's not Penn's Wharton School or NYU's Stern School by any stretch, but Business Week at Youngsville High School might be just the taste some young person gets that sends him or her on the path to one of those prestigious institutions.
For one week each of the past few fall sessions, YHS has invited local business leaders to mentor students on running a business, from marketing to manufacturing plans, from personnel organization to problem-solving.
The goal is to establish a business by identifying a need, a plan to fill it, and finally an organization capable of success.
As America struggles to claw its way out of a long recession, the need for business-savvy entreprenuers in our future has become more critical than ever before.
If one considers the case of Steve Jobs, about whom millions of words were written at his recent death, it becomes clear that entrepreneurship is not an archaic concept. Jobs, of course, handled it in great fashion without the benefit of an MBA or any business degree for that matter. But, across America there are still those who are charting the path of innovation. And, a business education certainly helps.
If even one of the students involved in creating and operating an imaginary business at YHS last week turns that experience into the drive to succeed in business, the exercise will have been worthwhile.