A Strong Finish for Global Business and World Language & Leadership students

Formal pitches and presentations are on the minds of the Global Business and World Language & Leadership students, as they started their final presentations in front of clients and judges this week.

This semester, students had a choice to work on external client projects or create their own entrepreneurial business plans to present in a “Shark Tank”, so there is a wide variety of activities going on every day!

Global Business students worked in teams on 25 business partner projects. The projects ran the gamut including event planning and fundraising, extensive research and analysis across a variety of topics and industries, social media strategy and planning, and financial literacy. World Language and Leadership students worked on projects that utilized French and Spanish as target languages and conducted global research for a multi-national company looking at export expansion.

For most of our students, the last weeks of the semester represent the last weeks of their secondary academic experience.  For thirteen years, they have been on a journey of exploring the possibilities of life and potential careers.  What better place to end one journey and start another than to be at CAPS.  The Global Business path has been a challenging one of new experiences and development.  We leave with a gratitude for the opportunity and confidence for their future that lies ahead in college and career.

The future CEOs are wrapping up the last topic in Macroeconomics: Economic Growth.  Here we will explore forces they will need to understand and apply eventually in their own businesses to optimize profit.  Major areas of focus are the economics of innovation, the economics of entrepreneurship and sustainable growth.  These final days bring together all the topics they learned to include aggregate supply & demand, recessionary and inflationary gaps, fiscal & monetary policy, and the impact of globalization.  The study of this discipline ends with the capstone presentation of their assessment of the effect of automation, as defined by robotics and artificial intelligence, on the economy to include employment and productivity.

The Global Business students that selected the development of a Business Plan are putting the final touches to both the written portion and the PowerPoint document that will be presented in the “Shark Tank” experience next week.  Taking an idea and thinking through all the details required to evaluate its viability is one of the hardest challenges for budding entrepreneurs.  Enabled by the world-renowned Kauffman Foundation’s FastTrac Series, the students have learned and applied a sound process of plan development.  The expert panel of judges will provide them the best “15 minutes” of learning as they get feedback and suggestions.