Wharton Summer Leadership Programs Train Teenagers High School Students Learn Real-World Business Skills
Wharton’s three on-campus summer leadership programs offer high school students the unique opportunity to experience and learn about business firsthand.
Students live on campus; study principles of leadership, business, and management with Wharton and Penn faculty; meet business leaders and entrepreneurs; and test their creativity with original business projects. “It’s a very different type of learning than they get in high school,” says Helene Elting, associate director of Wharton’s undergraduate leadership programs.
This year, some 140 students enrolled in the new Management and Technology Summer Institute and the longer-running Leadership in the Business World and Leadership, Education, and Development programs.
Leadership in the Business World (LBW) Leadership in the Business World, held this year from July 3-30, encourages high school students to consider a career in business. “We want as diverse a population as possible to learn about the flexibility and richness of business education,” explains Elting. “We want to teach them that business is not simply about making money. It’s about making a contribution.”
The Wharton-sponsored institute consists of classes, trips, and meetings with business leaders from a variety of disciplines and industries. Students worked in groups of 10, lead by undergraduate advisors, to develop original business plans, which they later presented to venture capitalists.
Classes addressed such key business topics as ethics, accounting, and entrepreneurship. Yet the program was hardly limited to academic activities. Students saw the Enron documentary The Smartest Guys in the Room, played golf and tennis, and took daytrips to nearby attractions.
In M&TSI’s first session, held from July 10-30, students studied with professors, met business leaders, visited technology firms and R&D facilities, and worked in the laboratory to hone their own R&D skills. “Each of the program’s different components — the trips, the laboratory work, the lectures — builds toward the same idea: how management and technology concepts mesh together,” explains Lea Engle, administrative director of the Fisher Program.
Working in teams, students developed a prototype for a new electronic device and a “go-to-market” business plan, which they presented during a technology fair at the end of the program.
“They sounded more like college sophomores than 17-year-olds,” recalls Engle about the students’ development. “It’s been rewarding to see how M&TSI has opened their minds. I think they found that the teamwork is one of the most memorable aspects of the program.”
Leadership Education and Development (LEAD
Attracting underrepresented minority students from across the country, the LEAD program combines real-world experience with exposure to Wharton’s faculty.
The program began in 1980 when Johnson & Johnson asked Wharton to help recruit young minority students interested in business. Today the LEAD program has been adopted by 10 other universities, including Duke, Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Cornell.
In class, students heard speakers on such topics as management, leadership, and marketing, including Wharton Vice Dean Barbara Kahn. “We’re offering a wide palette of what you can study at Wharton,” explains Chris Maxwell, associate director of Wharton’s undergraduate leadership programs.
In addition to lectures, LEAD emphasizes interaction. Students spent five days on entrepreneurship, working with teams to create their own business plans. They were given case studies before visiting companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express, where they shared their ideas with company representatives.
Students also visited the Department of State in Washington, DC, where they met with a senior official to discuss the differences between European and US strategies for economic competition.
Alberto Quintero, who came to Philadelphia this summer from Manati, Puerto Rico, found the business plan development particularly enlightening. “It was a great opportunity to experience what an entrepreneur does. I have learned what a business education is all about.”
