VE studesnts Jacob Poscover, Liza Tarakanova, Brooke Ryan, Skyler Smith and Allison Wagner.
Last year, 48 high school students from two Parkway schools participated in a pilot experiential learning program that was a resounding success…Thanks to West High’s business teacher Emanuel Young, it came to Parkway South and West high schools during the 2016-17 school year, making Parkway the first district in Missouri to offer VE.
Young was introduced to VE, specifically its career and technical education [CTE] pathway, during his six years as a New York City educator. When he moved back to St. Louis with his wife and three young sons to teach business classes in Parkway, he knew he wanted to bring the program with him. Amy Belding, coordinator of career and technical education, was sold on the program immediately and fast-tracked it as Parkway’s newest entrepreneurship program.
“We visited two comprehensive high schools using the program and received training from Long Island public schools,” Belding explained. “We were very excited to bring it to Parkway!”
When you attend your VE class, you’re walking into an office to become a young business professional. For students who are starting VE for the first time, the beginning of the school year marks the beginning of this transformation and for students who are returning for another year of VE, it marks a continuation.
In 2016-17, students gained a total of 2.1 million hours of work experience thanks to VE. This means each student gained 180 hours of work experience during the course of the school year. Going through this program helps prepare you for success in college and careers and we want to make sure you get the most out of these 180 hours by sharing five essential questions for starting the year successfully.
1. How can you best manage your time?
2. How do you interact with businesses in your daily life?
3. What can you learn from former VE students?
4. How can you apply your talents, interests, and skills in VE?
5. What do you hope to accomplish by the end of the year?
1. How can you best manage your time?
People often say that “time is money” but time is, in fact, an even more limited resource, especially when your attention is split among the demands of school, friends, family, work, extracurriculars, sports, and the many other parts of life. Because of this, your first days in VE should include a focus on “How can I learn how to better manage my time?” and “How can I make the most use of my time?”
The tasks and projects you’ll work on in VE — from business plans to trade shows — will help you directly learn and develop your time management skills, so don’t worry if this is something you haven’t mastered yet. As a matter of fact, in 2016-17, 81% of VE students reported having developed time-management skills through the VE program. To get an idea of what to expect, take a look at the tasks and resources found within the Orientation section of the Portal. This will allow you to take a broad look at the events and activities you and your firm should be keeping up with, while giving you the opportunity to easily fit your VE tasks with the rest of your responsibilities.
Portal Tasks & Resources:
- Orientation Task 1: Expectations and Requirements for the VE
- Orientation Task 3: Understanding Time Management
- Orientation Reference File: Annual Activities Map
Further Reading:
2. How do you interact with businesses in your daily life?
Whether you realize it or not, you interact with businesses on a daily basis. While most of these interactions happen with you as a consumer, VE allows you to learn about business from the perspective of starting, managing, and working within a business.
Actively thinking about how you interact with businesses will help guide what kind of firm you want to start and what role you want to play within this firm. Which businesses are you loyal to? What businesses were involved in how you spend your free time? Which businesses are involved in what you wear and bring to class every day? Consider these questions with your classmates to help brainstorm your new VE business or improve your existing firm.
Portal Tasks & Resources:
- Orientation Task 11: Brainstorming a Business Model
- Orientation Task 11 Reference File: Questions You Need to Ask Before Starting a Business
- Orientation Task 11 Reference File: Step-by-Step Guide to Brainstorming
3. What can you learn from former VE students?
When you’re in VE, you’re participating in a program that has served over 100,000 students since its inception in 1996. This means students like you have gone through this transformation, facing the same challenges you’ll soon face and reaching the kind of heights you want to reach. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your school’s VE alumni as they are more than happy to help. Invite them into the classroom as mentors, show them what you’re working on, and ask them for advice. VE alumni have a first-hand understanding of how to make the most of the VE experience and are great role models.
“I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have been challenged in VE. I have a passion for mentoring students in these classes and sharing my experience to motivate them to achieve their best.” – Sally A., Class of 08, Moreno Valley HS, CA
In addition to actively working with VE alumni from your high school, you can also learn from the work they and students all around the country did by reviewing the top-rated elevator pitches, business plan presentations, video commercials, and other competition submissions from previous years. You can find many of these files on the Competition Results page, as well as the VE YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.
Resources:
4. How can you apply your talents, interests, and skills in VE?
Which classes have you found success in? What is your role in your club or your sports team? What do your friends and family go to you for help with? These questions along with VE’s Orientation tasks and resources can help you figure out how to match your strengths with potential jobs within the VE business. A core part of the VE experience is “Assuming the Role,” which is what you’ll be doing within a particular department (ex: Marketing, Accounting, Human Resources) and at a certain level (ex: Associate, Manager, Chief-level) to become a young business professional.
Portal Tasks & Resources:
- Orientation Task 2: Matching Abilities / Skills with Job Traits
- Orientation Task 4: Applying For a Job
- Orientation Task 5: Preparing For and Completing a Successful Job Interview
Further Reading:
5. What do you hope to accomplish by the end of the year?
VEI presents Winning Women hosted by NBC Universal. (Photo: www.JeffreyHolmes.com)
Fresh into the VE year, it may be hard to imagine where or who you’ll be by the end of the year. However, take a moment and think about the skills you want to develop, the connections you want to make, and the project(s) you want to champion. As you go through the year, VE’s tasks, activities, and events will hone your leadership, professional, functional, and core technology skills as measured by the Career Readiness Framework.
Before you know it, you’ll be squeezing everything you’ve done and learned on a résumé and in a portfolio, connecting with fellow VE students from across the U.S. on LinkedIn, and venturing towards a successful future!
Portal Tasks & Resources:
- Administration Task 9: Identifying firm goals, objectives, and strategies
- Human Resources Reference File: Résumé Sample 1
- Human Resources Reference File: Expectations and Requirements for VE Students Memo
Further Reading:
5 Essential Questions for Students Starting VE
1. How can you best manage your time?
2. How do you interact with businesses in your daily life?
3. What can you learn from former VE students?
4. How can you apply your talents, interests, and skills in VE?
5. What do you hope to accomplish by the end of the year?
Write these questions down in your notebook or planner, discuss these questions with your teacher and classmates (soon-to-be-colleagues), and consider how they can help you get started on a successful VE year.
During the week of July 10th, 2017, over 130 teachers from across the U.S. gathered together at LIU Post to share advice, discuss the future of work, and learn the essentials of facilitating a VE class at the third annual National Teachers Conference.
Career Readiness Framework
Nick Chapman, President and National Program Director, covered how VE will be implementing the Career Readiness Framework, a comprehensive way to capture key competencies and skills employers seek and students need for success.
Review the Career Readiness Framework here.
Conference Sessions
This year’s National Teachers Conference had a range of helpful professional development sessions and collaborative roundtables. We would like to thank all the coordinators who volunteered to share their wisdom, experience, and knowledge as facilitators for these sessions.
| Session Title | Facilitator(s) |
| Methods of Facilitation | Kendra Lee, VE Illinois State Coordinator and Wendy Schmitt, VE Great Lakes Regional Director |
| VE-JV Career Academy: 7th Grade Activity Map & Lessons/Introduction to Canvas | Maria Frangella, VE-JV facilitator, MS 137 (NYC), Joanna Gillen, VE-JV facilitator, and William McKinley JHS (NYC) |
| Business Plan Basics For New VE Teachers | Amy Demchak, VE facilitator, Westhampton HS (NY) |
| A Look at VE Competitions: Rubrics, Results, and the Future | Nick Chapman, President and National Program Director, VEI |
| VE-JV Career Academy: 8th Grade Activity Map & Lessons | Frank Bennici, VE-JV facilitator, MS 137 America’s School of Heroes (NYC), Joanna Gillen, VE-JV 7th & 8th Grade facilitator, and William McKinley JHS (NYC) |
| Making the Sale! | Julie Levi, President, Progressive Promotions, Inc. |
| Basics of Accounting in VE | Teri Jones, Southern California Regional Director, VEI |
| Creating a Competitive Company Website | Jenny Benack, VE facilitator, Morris Knolls HS (NJ) |
| Hashtags & Retweets & Endorsements...Oh My! | Tyler Fugazzie, Marketing & Communications Manager, VEI and Abril Peña, VE Fellow, VEI |
| Human Resources Solutions | Joni Fulton, VE facilitator, Murrieta Valley HS (CA) |
| Encouraging Student-Led PD Sessions | Brenda Bechtol, VE facilitator, Oscar A. Carlson HS (MI), and Teresa Millican, VE facilitator, Airport HS (MI) |
| Incorporating Personal Finance into Your VE Firm | Alan Gersten, VE facilitator, Century HS (CA) |
| Engaging Your Local Community | Jaci Elliot, VE facilitator, Centennial HS (CA) |
| Featured Presentation | Dane Stangler, Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship, LIU with Rob Valli, Dean, College of Management, LIU Post |
| Contagion: Fighting Back Against Senioritis | Isai Serrano, VE facilitator, Manhattan Business Academy (NYC) |
| Preparing for a Trade Show | Mike Silberman, VE facilitator, West Hempstead HS (NY) |
| Afternoon Roundtables: The Commons, Accounting & Finance, Administration, Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, VE-JV, Generation VE: Collab-A-Thon | Brenda Bechtol, MI; Jenny Benack, NJ; Robin Buckles, CA; Rich Butzke, NY (Long Island); Amy Demchak, NY (Long Island); Jaci Elliott, CA; Joni Fulton, CA; Alan Gersten, CA; Darrell Iki, CA; Kathy McCoy, TN; Teresa Millican, MI; Chris Power, NY (NYC); Isai Serrano, NY (NYC); Mike Silberman, NY (Long Island); Kaye Sommer, MI |
Insight from the VE Judges’ Panel
What are judges most focused on during Business Plan Competitions? What makes a business plan presentation team stand out? What’s the most common mistake presenters make?
We gathered four industry professionals who have served as VE competition judges to answer these questions and more. Watch Paul Stanley, Manager of Community Investments at HSBC, Ritu Banga, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Zoomdojo, Jack Powers, Director at International Informatics Institute, and Alexandra Van Arkel, Senior Manager at NBCUniversal shared their perspectives on extraordinary competition performance, professionalism, and what students need to succeed.
Enjoyed the video? Watch more videos from the National Teachers Conference on our Facebook page!
Thank you to all the teachers that joined us at the third annual National Teachers Conference. We hope everyone has a great school year, whether this is your first or your fifteenth. Special thank you to WeWork for showing the future of work, Cisco for inspiration, and HSBC for supporting VE ambition. Thank you to Dr. Cline and the entire LIU Post team for helping make this conference happen.
