Quinnipiac Students Using Summer to Sharpen Business Skills

Seventy-two high school students are proving the summer is no time for slacking.

This week they are participating in Quinnipiac’s Summer Entrepreneurship Academy with the hopes of building their resumes and a bright future.

"Essentially what we want to do teach the kids the process of being an entrepreneur and help them understand the process of formulating ideas and going through all the steps," Academy mentor Marlon Pirre-Louis said.

The students represent every high school in New Haven. Darryl Willis just graduated from Metropolitan Business Academy and will be attending Quinnipiac in the fall. He is confident the skills he is learning while developing a sneaker app at the academy, will translate at the college level.

"It helps with all the knowledge I need and it helps with teamwork," Willis said. "I’m working with a lot of different people, I can’t do it on my own."

The sneaker app isn’t the only idea circulating this week. Other team projects include a solar freezer, voice activated sunglasses and makeup stickers.

"There are some really good ideas," Pirre-Louis said.

They may be a bunch of high school students, but they mean business.

"Every single person here, the materials and the products that we are making, it could sell. We are a really smart group of people," Madison Mickey said.

In total there are 16 projects being worked on. They will be presented to a special panel on July 21.

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