LORIS, SC (WMBF) For the first time, the students at Loris High School are painting a picture about a new way to prepare for the business world.
"I just knew it was a new club and new opportunities," said senior McCall. "And something at Loris High School I wanted to try."
"Especially with the economy that we're in," said sophomore Luciana Workman. "I think it's important that kids know business skills even if you're not necessarily in business. When you grow up I think it's just important to know what you're talking about."
Students are talking about "DECA"(Distributive Education Clubs of America), an organization giving students a "hands on" approach to marketing. Part of this class' chosen approach is to put on a school-wide talent show.
"With the talent show, for example, they're going to learn every aspect," said DECA advisor Terri Causey. "From pricing to marketing, promotions, customer service, everything. Sometimes those things are really hard to do in the classroom."
DECA also takes students out of the classroom for some serious competition. For first timers, they showed other schools they mean business.
"And we all cheered each other on," said Workman. "When we got medals we were all excited, because it's the first year we've been there so it was fun that everyone knows who Loris is now."
The other schools had no choice but to notice, as more than half of the students qualified to compete against all the DECA students in the state.
"They heard Loris High School, Loris High School, Loris High School six or seven different times at competition," said Causey. "And many of those schools had never heard of Loris before so you know they were like who is this school coming in."
Billy Nugent may be a senior, but if you were to ask him, he'd tell you he's a CEO of his own company. He's a Donald Trump, of sorts. Nugent and his classmates may be sitting in a classroom, but to them it's their very own virtual office. Students tackle the everyday operations of their coffee shop business in their virtual enterprise class.
"This is really intense really fun you get to make business plans," said Nugent. "Just like really opening a real business." These students are working with the big bucks.
"Like hundreds of thousands," said sophomore Shai Lewis. "A lot." Virtual dollars, of course.
They buy and sell products with other virtual student businesses in places like California, New York, and even Spain. They're learning the fundamentals of business in the virtual world, so they can one day translate it into running their own corporations in the real world. Although their work day may be shorter than yours, they certainly don't waste any time.
"Oh definitely we get no time," said Nugent. "We get here at 10:10 and get out at 11:40. And I don't stop working until 11:37 or 11:38 I'm working constantly through."
Whether it's turning a classroom into an office space, or a creative space, students are also using their computer screens as a canvas.
"It's art and computer application," said Junior Kenyatta Grate. "A mixture of both." In Visual Art class they say using a mouse is better than the old fashioned way.
"When you're doing with hands, it's not like doing," said junior Darwin Mejia. "You could look at the same picture you get bored by the same picture drawing." But with digital art, students can put a digital spin on pop art classics like Andy Warhol, all in a matter of minutes.
Students are doing something as simple as taking a picture, and transforming it on your computer screen to a 21st century work of art.
"Because art is I guess anything interesting that you can put together," said sophomore Stephanie Harrelson. "And a lot of the stuff we did was pretty interesting."
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