Business boot camp for pupils

Kerikeri High School student Ellie Leaf placed second for her business The Happy Girl last year. Photo / Peter de Graaf.

Some of the Northland's best commerce and economics students gave up a week of their school holidays to immerse themselves in the world of business.

Seventy students from around the country signed up for Massey University's annual Business Boot Camp this year.

Business Boot Camp is the brainchild of Dr Jeff Stangl, the business school's executive director of education partnerships, and his wife Dr Loren Stangl, who lectures in marketing. Its aim is to expose students to all aspects of business so they can make more informed decisions about their future studies and careers.

"Most of these young people will have multiple careers and we want them to go out there knowing that a career in business can mean many different things," Dr Jeff Stangl says.

Some of New Zealand's biggest organisations opened their doors.

"Visiting the sponsor companies introduced me to the real business world by showing me the fierce internal and external competition businesses face on a daily basis," said Noah Atchison-Darby, a Year 13 student from Springbank School.

Ellie Leaf, a Year 13 pupil from Kerikeri High School, identified the networking opportunities as her key boot camp experience.

"You are with people who have similar interests to you and you get to talk to awesome business people that you wouldn't have a chance to meet otherwise. This also means you can be more engaged in business thinking because you are living it for a week."

The students found the combination of fundamental business concepts and practical 'soft skills' made the programme unique.

"Learning is more involved here, it's more about how to actually work and how things run in the real world. It was so different to just learning the information required for the standard, but not always understanding how it related to real businesses," says Dominique Fong from Whangarei Girls' High School.