Winterim 2021
Immersive Study: Business and Entrepreneurship
Selfie taken during morning break
Business and Entrepreneurship by Grace Lee ’21 January 5, 2021
O Parking lot of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center
Inside the Nashville Entrepreneur Center WINTERIM 2021
ur vibrant group of 10 started off today at Junior Achievement learning about taxes, how much they are, who they come from, and where they go to (state, federal, medicare, social security, sales, etc.). Around 10:30 a.m., we left to go to the Nashville Entrepreneur Center downtown. Five of us listened to a lecture about entrepreneurship, while the rest toured the surrounding area to complete a local-business scavenger hunt. We then ate lunch on the picnic benches, hiked up a hill, and took pictures with the scenic urban setting in the background. After returning to JA, we were challenged by filling out a real individual income tax return. Fun day!
Harpeth Hall Business and Entrepreneurship students enjoy the sun downtown outside of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center during the first week of Winterim IMMERSIVE STUDY: BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Jordan Whitehouse ’22 January 7, 2021
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efore lunch we got to talk to Harpeth Hall alumna Kate Chinn. She talked about her work as a financial analyst at Alliance Bernstein and her career path from Harpeth Hall to now. Alliance Bernstein is a global firm with over 3,000 employees in 51 locations in 26 countries across the world. They are opening a new office in Nashville. In the afternoon, we went to Germantown and celebrated Kayla’s 18th birthday with a cupcake from The Cupcake Collection, a female-owned business that is a “destination bakery.”
As we walked through Germantown, we did a scavenger hunt through local businesses, and then we found a polar bear that we thought would be a great photo opportunity.
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Taylor Nisbett ’22 January 8, 2021
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oday we heard from Raven Hernandez, the cofounder of Earth Rides, a company similar to Uber that uses only electric vehicles to provide a desirable form of transportation that is not harmful to the environment. With the Earth Rideshare app, you can hail a driver much like Uber or Lyft, but service is much faster. She talked about the process of starting her own business, which transitioned us into our next lesson about the first three steps of design thinking — empathize, define with a problem statement, and ideate (or brainstorm) — which is particularly important when starting your own business.
We visited Plaza Mariachi and learned about its origin and significance. It’s a place that celebrates Latin American culture within Nashville and cultural diversity with art, food, music, and entertainment. It is decorated to look like a traditional marketplace in a Mexican pueblo, with streets named after Mexican revolutionaries, but it incorporates culture from many Latin American countries. There are classes that teach reading and writing. There are many events that take place here, including a salsa class that we took part in! Overall, it was a really wonderful experience. WINTERIM 2021
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Ava Malnati ’21 January 11, 2021
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oday we spent the first half of the day at Junior Achievement learning about the various types of insurance that exist. Beginning with life and auto-insurance, we learned how the differences in prices compared for different models and makes of several vehicles. After reflecting on the variance in prices, we had a guest speaker over zoom, Marti Loftis, from State Farm. She spoke to us about her career path with State Farm and how her career fits some of her interests that existed in both high school and college. We got to ask questions about different scenarios in the insurance world and see that world from behind the scenes. We then performed mock talk shows in small groups with a focus on insurance!
Zoom call with Marti Loftis of State Farm Insurance
Mock talk show discussion of insurance
After an enjoyable lunch, we worked on our Life Portfolios, which are presentations of our future career paths given the results we got from our Career Path Quiz on the first day. From Attorneys to Human Resources Managers, the career options vary for each person. On these presentations, we discussed both short and long term financial goals for ourselves and began to estimate possible savings amounts for each year with our estimated income.
Once we wrapped up with creating our financial goals and projections, we were able to meet with two college students — Seville Croker (’20) and Jane Goodwin (Mr. Goodwin’s daughter) — to gather advice based on their college experience. The conversations varied from the topic of social life, dorm life, exercise, healthy eating, and most importantly finances. With college, there are lots of options to shop around no matter where you go, and we learned today that it is important to not overindulge in the restaurants surrounding you and to use your money wisely! After this, we enjoyed some hot cocoa and different snacks that are common in dorms. WINTERIM 2021
Closing a chilly winter day with hot chocolate and healthy snacks
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Libby Tarantin ’21 January 12, 2021
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oday, the other half of our group went to the Nashville Entrepreneur Center! We met
with someone named “Zap” (Haley Zapolski), and she gave us a talk about her past with entrepreneurs and what the center does. She told us about some of the companies that they help, a
The Nashville Entrepreneurship Center’s Hall of Fame
couple of which were so interesting! My favorite project we learned about is an app called “Possip,” which helps parents of students communicate with their teachers more easily. Zap also told us about how we can become entrepreneurs ourselves. She talked about the startup process for entrepreneurs and programs that the center has for them. Although it is very difficult, it seems like such a rewarding experience! Zap then gave us a tour of the entrepreneur center — it is a very communication-centered workspace, so it was interesting to see
Cafe at Pinewood Social
that there weren’t many isolated offices. After lunch, we returned to Junior Achievement and learned about debit cards and credit cards. It was so interesting, considering that people our age are starting to think about our financial futures. I even decided which credit card I’m going to use when I head off to college!
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Edith Kiprono ’21 January 14, 2021
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oday, we talked about budgeting. We looked up celebrities who were once rich to find out how they lost their money. For example, musician M.C. Hammer spent $30 million renovating a house, and former quarterback Dan Marino invested all of his money into one startup and lost everything when the company failed. We then put ourselves in their shoes and decided what we would have done differently. We were given a few scenarios and made a monthly budget based on their income as well as their short- and long-term goals.
Takeout lunch from Hugh Baby’s
After our lunch from Hugh Baby’s, we finished working on our thank you notes as we waited for Dr. Jose Gonzalez to come speak to us. Dr. Gonzalez is a professor at Belmont University’s College of Business Administration who specializes in entrepreneurship. Today’s guest lecturer was Dr. Jose Gonzalez.
Dr. Gonzalez explained how an entrepreneur identifies an opportunity, and then exploits that opportunity. He also discussed ways to be a successful entrepreneur. He recently helped his son, Eduardo Gonzalez, to start a sanitizing business — Music City Sanitizing Services, a start-up company that uses electrostatic spraying technology to sanitize spaces during the pandemic. Eduardo zoomed with us from Elon University, where he’s still enrolled as an undergraduate. He told us what inspired him to start the business and how he has been managing it while also being a senior in college. We had so many questions to ask both speakers, and we learned so much!
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Kayla Gardner ’21 January 15 and 18, 2021
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n Friday, we began our morning with an entrepreneurial activity. In this activity we worked in groups to create a prototype that solved a given problem. This culminated our Entrepreneurship lessons, as we worked through the final stages of the Entrepreneurship cycle. Our given problem was to create a structure/item to store a student’s belongings when they got home in the afternoons. While one group chose to create a cubby-like piece of furniture, the other group chose to design a portable tree-like structure with hooks to store each item. After this, we headed down to Franklin for an afternoon at the Soar Adventure Tower. Some of us embraced the heights while others enjoyed the mini-golf site. It was chilly, but no matter how high each of us chose to climb, we all had a great experience! On Tuesday, we started our morning with a budget scenario with our salaries in the entry level position that we have research in part of our “My Life Portfolio.” This was a great activity to see the number of expenses that an average adult has and will help to prepare us for when this is our reality. After this activity we then broke into groups to work on creating an interesting way to talk about the three ways that we can “prepare today for our future”. The categories include college/career prep and budgeting. We will present these to our class on Thursday. After lunch, we spent time creating wardrobe capsules. We chose 10 items that can be versatile in our closet and that we can wear for our chosen career. We researched the types of clothes that each profession wears and then researched the costs of these items. To wrap up the day, we presented our “closets” to our classmates.
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Business and Entrepreneurship by Taylor Nisbett ’22 January 22, 2021
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or our final off-site excursion, we went to Top Golf! Elise, Ava, and Sarah Grace dominated the scoreboards, and we all had a great time.
Stephanie Presnell, Elise’s mom, spoke to us about her work. Mrs. Presnell is a former financial analyst at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and is now Assistant Director of Revenue Cycle Analytics. She told us about the work and skills of a financial analyst and assistant director, the benefits of working for a nonprofit organization, and other aspects of her job. Thank you so much to our Junior Achievement teachers, Kat Jordan and Rachel Dyer! We have learned so much these past three weeks, and we are so grateful for this experience. It’s been a blast!
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