Santa Clara University’s
Women in Business Made
Earning Their MBAs More
“Real” with Junior
Achievement
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The 24 Santa Clara University MBA students in Women in Business who volunteered to teach Junior Achievement in a Day expected to feel good about spending time with children in the community. But they achieved a lot more—for themselves and their students. These future MBAs found they truly enjoyed applying in real-time their classes from SCU’s Leavey Business School, and especially making business education exciting for 1st through 6th graders. As a bonus, the Women in Business team—both men and women—formed a strong, diverse network to help each other’s future work success.
Women in Business chose to work with Junior Achievement because it bridges their work and MBA studies with education and community. Since 1953, Junior Achievement has partnered with Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay businesses, communities and educational institutions to help young people familiarize themselves with business concepts to achieve 3 key goals: workforce readiness, dropout prevention and economic education.
Working in pairs and solo at Rose Elementary School in Milpitas on May 24, 2002, the SCU Women in Business students spent the day teaching the Junior Achievement elementary school programs to children ranging from ages 6 to 12. Each grade learns different concepts about their community and working in business. For example, Timir Chokshi who speaks Spanish, and Jen Shoup taught 3rd graders the “business” of cities. The children bonded with them very quickly and in fact enjoyed Timir and Jen’s company so much that they spent recess together playing basketball—girls vs. boys. The girls won and the competition lasted the rest of the day in class. Timir said, “It was a lot of fun, but also very rewarding and enriching. We were able to use our business skills and experience and share it with kids through classroom exercises and discussion—it was like a mini-MBA class geared towards 3rd graders.”
And the Rose elementary school children helped their volunteer teachers as well. For example, Neha Sampat taught 2nd grade. During the “donut exercise”, which is related to production supply chain, she had to explain ingredients. Some children, many of whom predominantly speak Spanish, got confused by the word “flour”—they thought it was “flower.” Then one girl understood and said that flour was what went into tortillas. After that, all the students really participated in making the words understood—in Spanish and English.
The Women in Business group who taught Junior Achievement at Rose Elementary typifies the diversity of SCU’s MBA students and graduates: both females and males and a wide range of ethnicities, e.g., Indians, Viet Namese, Korean, Chinese and Caucasians. As is common across Santa Clara University, they had already volunteered in the community: “career clothing” drive to help underprivileged and unemployed women in job interviews as they move into the workforce; toy donation and wrapping for East Palo Alto children; and a cell phone drive for battered women’s organization. But according to Neha (a full-time consultant as well as MBA student), the Junior Achievement experience was unique as their first education-oriented volunteering. “Everyone [from the Women in Business team] who participated loved it and would do it again. The cool thing was having a chance to work together outside of the classroom. We are all so busy—working, spending time with families, taking classes—that we don’t have many opportunities to really get to know the other MBA students. It was a good opportunity for us to network away from the classroom or the library.”
As proof of their excitement and commitment to each other and the community, the Women in Business at SCU are already planning their 2nd Junior Achievement in a Day in November 2002. To join the SCU Women in Business efforts with Junior Achievement, please contact neha@redslacks.com.
Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay is the premier K – 12 local economic education organization, serving Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara Counties. Globally, Junior Achievement is the largest and fastest-growing nonprofit economic education organization, annually teaching over 4 million elementary, middle school and high school students in 106 countries. Since 1953, Junior Achievement has partnered with Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay businesses, communities and educational institutions to help young people familiarize themselves with business concepts to achieve 3 key goals: workforce readiness, dropout prevention and economic education. Junior Achievement’s mission is for students to be inspired and educated by volunteer role models, who help these youth succeed by linking education to the world of work. Junior Achievement’s unique approach to accomplish its mission is that local business organizations’ volunteers combine their work experience with up-to-date Junior Achievement-developed courses to teach students how to apply basic skills and critical thinking to solve complex problems in the “real world.” Armed with this fundamental business and community understanding, 25,000 students annually, in every school grade, learn to become active contributors to the Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay economy. Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay: Making local economic education impact one classroom at a time. For more information and to volunteer, visit http://www.jascc.org or call 408-988-8915.
