Central Bucks Students Take Part in Annual Business Simulation

Posted onAuthorMichael Pettiti

students discuss their business ideas with Bob Byers of Byers Choice

Students dis­cussed work­shop out­comes in a debrief facil­i­tat­ed by Bob Byers of Byers Choice.

During a two-day event, about 50 advanced place­ment eco­nom­ics and busi­ness stu­dents from all three Central Bucks School District (CBSD) high schools (CB East, CB South, and CB West) gath­er in a con­fer­ence room with more than a dozen men­tors. They man­age a sim­u­lat­ed for-profit stu­dent com­pa­ny, engag­ing in var­ied exer­cis­es and friend­ly competition. 

The activ­i­ty is mod­er­at­ed by CB West grad­u­ate, Bob Byers of Byers’ Choice. Byers was approached by a for­mer social stud­ies teacher with the idea, and he jumped at the chance to give back to his school and pos­i­tive­ly con­tribute to the busi­ness edu­ca­tion of Central Bucks stu­dents. In refer­ring to the pan­el of men­tors, “Every one of the peo­ple you see up here today is here because some­one helped them and guid­ed them.”

“Participants not only learn to appre­ci­ate our free enter­prise sys­tem, but they also see from a prac­ti­tion­er’s per­spec­tive what it takes to be suc­cess­ful in an increas­ing­ly com­pet­i­tive glob­al mar­ket­place,” Scott Berger, K‑12 Social Studies and Library Supervisor explains.

Students prac­tice the actu­al oper­a­tion of their own busi­ness for the equiv­a­lent of three years (12 quar­ters) and com­pete to see which is most profitable.

Facing all of the deci­sions that real exec­u­tives are con­front­ed with, the stu­dents work along­side the var­i­ous local busi­ness “men­tors,” who rep­re­sent such var­ied fields as mar­ket­ing, law, bank­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and more — all vol­un­teer­ing to act as com­pa­ny advi­sors for the exer­cise. Sharing their knowl­edge and exper­tise, they help the stu­dents address the most sig­nif­i­cant issues fac­ing busi­ness today — bud­gets, adver­tis­ing, stocks, pro­duc­tion deci­sions, qual­i­ty man­age­ment, and more.

“Students have real­ly enjoyed the expe­ri­ence in the past and many make great con­tacts for future intern­ships, and even jobs,” Berger added.

“It was good to hear where they went to col­lege, what they did in high school, what intern­ships they did, that’s kind of neat to see,” a stu­dent not­ed, “It kind of helps you gauge what you can do, you don’t have to go straight to col­lege, you can work for two years or trav­el and then go, there’s dif­fer­ent ways to get where you want to be.”

More CBSD news at www.cbsd.org/news.