Big Changes Bring Unknown Endings

If you have been exposed to CAPS, you’ll know that it’s a place where exploration and innovation are a part of everyday life. The Fall 2018 semester is no exception for the Business, Media and Technology strand. This semester the students are embarking on a journey of exploration.

Many high school students have after school activities and after school jobs. CAPS students up the ante on the term “high school job experience.” At CAPS, students get the unique experience of not only having a “job” but being the CEO of their own company. How does this happen? In the past, students essentially become 2 person companies that take on an external client’s project. Students are responsible for client meetings, identifying needs and deliverables, then working toward completing the project. Thorough this process, students are constantly innovating and exploring career fields and often changing the landscape of that field.

You may ask yourself, what makes Fall 2018 any different? We are experiencing a radical shift in the way students work with their first professional client. In their professional lives, many young adults will work in a large marketing, advertising or consulting firms. This semester students are forming large marketing and advertising “firms” by closely collaborating with students across the strand. Imagine a pair of film students working with a team of five other students from the global business, technology solutions, digital design and photography and multi-media journalism. Ask any professional and they will tell you, this style of cross collaboration doesn’t get any more “real world.”

This week, students are working in cross-collaborative teams to evaluate every client’s project needs. They are analyzing client pitches, project requests and their current status as a company. Next week, they will meet with their project team to form their companies and begin the journey to project completion. By utilizing the preliminary research completed this week, each student-company will have a robust beginning. The beginning is just that – a beginning. The students and instructors cannot predict where this new, exploratory client project format will take us, but we do know there will be a lot of innovation along the way.