Hamburg Area High School students recently attended Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week in Williamsport, a program for college bound juniors who are interested in entrepreneurship and business.
Bringing together business professionals from all over the country, this program has been going on for 40 years and continues to grow and inspire students across the country.
Students are put into a college-like scenario dorming with other teenagers across their state. The students are then put into groups to lead and run a failing business, building it back up with marketing and business tactics.
Juliette Buckwalter, a senior at Hamburg Area High School, attended for the fun of it and to see what it has to offer. She roomed with another Hamburg senior, Hailey Quinn. She stayed at Lycoming College.
Buckwalter explained that during her time at Free Enterprise Week, she learned overall what she was capable of in the finance world and other great marketing and business tactics. Her team won the marketing presentation award. Her experience was overall positive, she said.
“The simulation was well laid out other than the fact that we were in a recession the entire simulation until the last quarter. There were activities between work sessions and the food plus dorming was good. Everyone there was nice, and it was easy to work with everyone on my team,” said Buckwalter.
However Buckwalter does not believe it gave her a better understanding of college and how she would feel about going.
She does recommend this program for future seniors.
“You go there for a week and if you are willing to learn stuff about how to run a business or just how to market or to run finance, I would definitely recommend it,” said Buckwalter. “Not only that but it was pretty fun and I made a lot of friends that I still talk to a little bit today.”
For more information on PFEW visit //www.pfew.org/.
Story by Hamburg senior Madison Redding. Previously printed in the Hamburg Area High School newspaper “Hawk Happenings.”
