For the 2019-2020 year, I joined a program called Junior Achievement (JA). Specifically, I joined the Company Program. Essentially, it takes a group of teens together, and you have to create an entire company and product from scratch. This is my experience in the program, as a first-timer into JA.
What is Junior Achievement?
Junior Achievement takes groups of 15-25 teenagers from grades 9-12 and puts them together to create a company and product from scratch. I believe there are about 30 companies within Calgary alone, but it may include Southern Alberta. This program has most of what an actual business would consist of. Each company has a bank account, different departments, executives, and a president at the top. I was the VP of Finance for our company, and thus my experience would be different from a non-executive.
My experience was overall slightly positive. Not positive by a far shot, just enough to place me over the neutral mark. Through this blog, I will go over my thoughts about my team and each event I went to. These events are; the Executive Training, Financial Events, and The Crossiron Mills Trade-show.
The Team Dynamic – Ignite
Our team was one of the smallest teams inside the Calgary JA program. We only had 14 members, while other teams I spoke to had nearly 30. Obviously, this set us back, but our team dynamic was strong. We each got to know the other members a lot better then what would have probably happened if we had more members, There was a lot more work for us to do individually, but I don’t have another year of JA experience to compare this one too.
We named our company Ignite. Our goal was to put a unique twist onto LED lights as a decoration. I was honestly quite unhappy with our product, and I’m pretty sure most of the team was too, including the person that gave the idea. We had to run with the idea, as no others were suggested. Thus, we went with it and sold it for the half-year that JA runs for.
JA Event – Executive Training
My Executive Training experience was sub-par at best. It wasn’t managed well and instructions were very unclear. They had us sit by our departments at the beginning, but gave an indication of where each department was. They gave snacks and tea, which I don’t actually remember getting. However, I do remember that a table member’s tea grossly started to curdle.
The JA managers then separated us by our departments, placing us into different rooms with different teachers. The finance teacher was semi informative but got sidetracked a lot as well. Thus I didn’t retain much as their teaching wasn’t very concrete. Their computer wouldn’t run, and they couldn’t fix it, so it’s a good thing they don’t work for IT.
Financial Events
The first Financial Event was called Bank Day. This was probably my worst experience within the program. All teams had to send the VP of Finance, President, and one of the team mentors downtown to create the company bank account. Once again, instructions were unclear. They told us the address of the building, but not any further instructions. Once I arrived, and the only indication I was given that I was at the right place is a sign at the front that said “JA Bank Day”. There was no direction on where to go, so I just waited in the lobby for a short while. After the receptionist told me she didn’t know where I should go, I decided to go past the front desk on my own. Thankfully more signs around the corner. Additionally, this happened within school hours. I understand why they would have to do this, with scheduling and work hours at the bank, but I’m still bitter about that.
The second financial event was called Liquidation training. Here we learned to liquidate; or close our bank accounts completely. I couldn’t really praise or disregard this. I saw someone drink 3 cans of root beer in 1 hour though.
JA Event – CrossIron Mills Trade-show
The trade-show is the biggest part of Junior Achievement. All the teams come together at CrossIron Mills Mall and set up booths to sell. There was one at New Horizons, but apparently that mall is pretty dead. Our team was semi-successful in selling our product, and nothing really noteworthy happened. Management was pretty solid, and instructions were more clear than in past events. I heard a lot of passersby, especially other teens, insulting us for blocking the way.
Closure Of The Year
Overall, as stated before, my experience was slightly more positive than neutral. Many events were run poorly, but that is only a fraction of my experience. Most of the time happened at our meetings, which ran smoothly and were enjoyable. Communication was poor at times as well. They sent emails each week to give us updates, but some were very unclear. According to other teams, this year, in general, was organized a lot worse than the last.
Regardless, Junior Achievement is still a great learning opportunity. For those that want to get a job in Entrepreneurship, Finance, IT, or other business roles, this is a great program to learn in. There aren’t too many Entrepreneurship experiences in Calgary anyways, and many academic scholarships look for this kind of experience. So even if you don’t plan on going into that kind of job, you practice your social skills and get a huge resume booster.
Link to the JA Website for Southern Alberta
https://jasab.ca/
You can find more about Company Program through this link. Just click the Program tab at the top, then select grades 10-12. They allowed Grade 9 students to join this year, but I don’t know if they will do the same for next year.