By Cody Stover
It was a trip around the world one day, an elementary school lesson the next, and then a weekend featuring a fashion show and a Hogwarts dinner. The Austin Entrepreneurship Program’s BA 160 class’ ability to give students a variety of hands-on project management experiences was on full display in Week 9 as they hosted four events they spent fall term planning.
The week kicked off Sunday, Nov. 16, with An International Affair, hosted on various floors of Weatherford Hall. Each of the four involved floors represented a different country (Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Indonesia and China), and BA 160 students invited peers to learn about international cuisine and culture. The event’s purpose was to increase intercultural understanding and appreciation.
Things boomeranged back to a more local scale the following Friday when another set of students taught financial literacy at Pioneer School in Lebanon. These AEP students gave lessons on the importance of saving, managing money and finance terminology. Pioneer School offers education to students from kindergarten through eighth grade, so the college students could use their teaching skills with a variety of age groups.
That same evening, a third group of BA 160 students hosted the beYOUtiful Fashion Show in the auditorium of brand-new Austin Hall. The show was designed to break down fashion industry stereotypes and emphasized building positive self-images for people of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities and styles.
An extra busy week in Weatherford Hall concluded with a hint of magic as a fourth group of BA 160 students put on a Hogwarts Thanksgiving celebration. Weatherford was transformed into the four houses of Hogwarts — Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff — and Harry Potter-themed events and food filled the hallways. The event, free to all Weatherford residents, was a magical transition into the holiday season.
Those final projects concluded fall term for the BA 160 students, but this quarter was simply a warm-up. In next term’s BA 161 course, students will be required to form their own start-up venture to raise money for entrepreneurs in Nicaragua in the form of microloans. So while fall 2014 represented a great quarter of project planning, the best is yet to come.
