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The Village School Launches its Entrepreneurship Diploma with Bridges to Wealth at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
[March 22, 2017]

The Village School Launches its Entrepreneurship Diploma with Bridges to Wealth at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania


The Village School, the largest private school in Houston, announced today it is offering its high school students a four-year Entrepreneurship Diploma with Founding Partner Bridges to Wealth at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Village's commitment to providing innovative methods of teaching to prepare its student leaders for college and beyond closely aligns with Bridges to Wealth's mission to empower youth with business literacy knowledge and 21st century life skills.

To help students develop critical thinking, professional, and leadership skills, Village partnered with Bridges to Wealth, which sets the standard for curricula and courses in business and entrepreneurship education, to provide the unique Entrepreneurship Diploma. With curricula created by Wharton Professor Dr. Keith Weigelt, the Diploma positions students to develop the financial literacy, creative and integrative-thinking, decision-making, collaborative, and strategy-based skillset to launch their own business ideas and tackle global challenges in the 21st century, global, and dynamic workplace.

"As educators, it's our responsibility to ensure that our children are on track for success beyond their academic careers," said Gabriella Rowe, Head of School at The Village School. "By providing our students with opportunities to immerse themselves in the realities of the working world, we're helping them develop skills to thrive at jobs that don't even exist yet, and navigate the ever-changing, global economy."

Incoming freshman at Village have the opportunity to enroll in the Entrepreneurship Diploma, which focuses on teaching finance, leadership development, negotiations, decision-making, marketing, strategy, private equity and venture capital, money management, and more. Within the Diploma, students can specialize in either the Engineering or Social Enterprise track. Both tracks are taught by industry-leading professionals and entrepreneurs, and expose students to the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. Specifically:





• The Engineering Track focuses on "product-driven entrepreneurship," and teaches how to apply entrepreneurship concepts to quantitative data analysis, engineering, and STEAM.

• The Social Enterprise Track focuses on "process-driven entrepreneurship," and participants learn how to create, implement, and evaluate processes that drive social entrepreneurship.

 


Both tracks culminate in a Capstone (News - Alert) experience in which students work with a non-profit or business to identify a community or industry need. With mentorship from entrepreneurs and professors, students must research, create, execute, and evaluate a tangible solution that addresses that need. These real-world learning experiences are student-centered and problem-based, enable students to develop business literacy and interpersonal skills, and are an integral part of the Entrepreneurship Diploma.

"Our students are keenly aware of the challenges facing our local and global communities, and bring new ideas to tackling these challenges. With the Entrepreneurship Diploma now at Village, we're preparing students to think and act as entrepreneurs, and providing them with opportunities to change their world, and change it now," said Christine Galib, Entrepreneurship Diploma Director, Entrepreneurship Instructor, and Wellness Director at The Village School. Prior to Village, Galib co-founded an investment management team on Wall Street, served as a Teach For America Corps Member, and founded her own health and wellness consulting company.

Village's Entrepreneurship Diploma enables students to take coursework across numerous disciplines, integrating cross-curricular content and skills, and consists of the following modules:

• Entrepreneurship: Students gain skills in lateral thinking, sales and marketing, pricing strategies, operations and HR management, cost analysis, budgeting and accounting, decision-making, relationship management, and presentation skills.

• Leadership Development: Students learn the traits of strong leaders and develop written, verbal, presentation, and collaboration skills.

• Private Equity and Venture Capital: This course introduces students to an understanding of PE and VC, and provides a primer on investing, managing capital, and understanding risk.

• Strategy and Marketing: This course teaches an understanding of how marketing strategy applies to a business context.

• Decision Making: Students learn the nuances of decision making, and gain familiarity with frameworks and tools for doing so.

• Financial Literacy: This course introduces students to budgeting, managing credit, reducing debt, and thinking as an owner of their finances. Students learn about the stock market, checking, savings, and retirement accounts, compound interest, and gain skills using Excel.

• Negotiations: Students learn about the frameworks and tools for rational and informed decisions, and strategies and tactics for negotiating and bargaining.

 

For more information on Village's Entrepreneurship Diploma or to enroll your student, contact Christine Galib by email at [email protected] or by calling 281-496-7900.

About The Village School

The Village School, founded in 1966, has a tradition of rigorous and highly personalized learning paired with hands-on innovative methods of teaching. Located in the energy corridor of Houston, Village offers an American educational experience to its diverse and international student body who represent six continents and more than 60 countries. The Village School is known for its excellence in math and science, and recently announced a new collaboration with The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT (News - Alert)), which will enhance its widely-recognized STEAM curriculum.

Of the top 15 engineering undergraduate programs as ranked by US News and World Report, the Class of 2016 had 69 students admitted to 12 of the top 15 schools, such as MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley. In August 2016, The Village School opened its French-English Bilingual Program. Limited placements for Preschool 2's through grade 12. An International Baccalaureate School. For a private tour contact [email protected] or 281.496.7900. Visit www.TheVillageSchool.com for more information.


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