Summer Corps Week 1
Going into the Summer Corps program I had very little knowledge on
what I was going to be doing or what this summer was going to look
like. What I knew for certain was that I was going to help teach
entrepreneurship and business skills to high school students. During
our few days of training, I learned that I would be spending my next
few weeks at Babson’s Boston campus in the heart of the financial
district where I would be sort of like a morph between a camp
counselor and a tutor exploring the city with a group of students
hungry for knowledge.
On the first day of the program we learned that the majority of our
students recently moved to the United States and had varying levels of
English skills. During this first day, I began to think that this
summer may not be what I had originally thought it was going to be.
The students were quiet and I underestimated the difficulty of the
language barrier. It had been years since my high school spanish class
and my fear was that the content I was trying to deliver was being
lost in translation. I was still excited and decided to switch my
focus for the summer on strengthening the students’ communication and
language skills and if they learned a few things about business skills
then that was an added bonus.
As each day in the program progresses, the students’ english and my
spanish improve and my goals evolve. I realize that I will be able to
focus on guiding the students through the ways of entrepreneurial
thought and action and that the language barrier is just the
challenge, not the focus. On the third day the program, the ideas the
students had for a food business that supports the UN Sustainability
goals reminded me of the conversations I remember having in
Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship at the college level.
Each day my expectations are exceeded and I am excited to see what
these students accomplish both this summer and in their careers in the
future.
-Alexis Hamlett