According to junior Grace Mayhugh (and many other students across PA), The Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week (PFEW) is honestly one of the best things you can do. The week-long summer program promotes business education, public speaking, persuasive techniques, and other real-world skills needed to go out on your own after graduation.
Mayhugh, who is now a PFEW ambassador, attended last summer and her team won the entire week. She describes what a PFEW experience would look like for you:
About six or so months before, you must register and choose which campus you would like to attend, either Lycoming College or Pennsylvania College of Technology. Both campuses are in Williamsport PA, about four hours away.
Once on campus, you meet up with all the others attending your selected week, and you are put into teams of about 16 students with one adult mentor. These teams will be with you for your entire week, so you get to know them well! There are various ice breaker activities and then it is straight to the point. You will be making a product and setting up an entire business!
Now, this isn’t some little lemonade stand you and your friends ran in fourth grade. Students elect a CEO, Chief of Marketing, and other officer positions. If you’re into math, you’ll be running the finance side, which means you will have to analyze the data from your company and figure out the next move. If you are more into marketing , you’ll be able to design the company logo, make a website, and make a catchy commercial and radio ad!
If you do not have a big position, don’t fret, you’re still very necessary to this operation.
“I was a member of the marketing team,” said Mayhugh. “So, I got to be creative with design and promoting our product.”
Her team created “EveryWear Coat”, a jacket which has temperature controls. There are four categories teams can win, but there can only be one team to win it all! Mayhugh told me that when they won it was an “overwhelming feeling” but she is so glad that her team came out on top!
You could be the next winning team!
In addition to creating your business, you also will be able to network by speaking with people in tech fields, multiple business owners, and with representatives from corporations such as Sweethearts & Heros, David Flood, and Erica Waller-Hill. Even if you aren’t particularly interested in business, you are bound to learn more about what you want to do in the future.
Trigger Warning: Public Speaking will be a big thing this week, so you can finally get over that presentation anxiety you’ve had since elementary school.
If you can get past public speaking, one of the best things about PFEW is that you get a real feel for college life because you live in the dorms. And yes, I said dorm. At both Lycoming and Penn Tech, you will be livin’ the college life for a week like students do during school hours. You will sleep in the dorms, eat at the dining hall, and be able to use all the amenities offered at the school, including a pool!
Lycoming has a more intimate feel, where everything you need to attend is about a five minute walk from your dorm. Penn Tech has a bigger campus, so it might take you a longer time to get around, but a bigger campus comes with more space! At Penn Tech, you can elect to stay in APARTMENT STYLE dorms, instead of your typical room.
In the evenings, there are various events you can attend such as a pool night and a dance. At the end of the week, there is an award ceremony.
So even if you don’t want to major in business, this is still a great resume builder and scholarship opportunity once you complete it. You can get up to $20,000 in scholarships to Lycoming College and $5,000 to Pennsylvania College of Technology. This is rewarded AUTOMATICALLY when you graduate from PFEW. Even if you don’t see Lycoming in your future, you can use this money to negotiate financial aid at other colleges.
If all this sounds like something perfect for you, you can apply by clicking this link or going to https://www.pfew.org/student-application.
The cost of the program is normally $295 but if you use the code PFEWGRANT, the price drops to $195. Spots are not guaranteed, so get in while you can!
If you have additional questions, reach out to our PFEW Ambassador Grace Mayhugh! Make sure to use her name as a referral on your application!
