Business Education Pathway
Business Education Pathway courses are taught under the direction of Mrs. Camille Strycula. Students enroll in the Course 1 & 2 their Junior year, followed by Course 3 their senior year.
Course 1: Marketing & Advertising (Year 1 Fall Semester)
This semester course focuses on advertising strategy and promotion techniques, including research, consumerism, and theories on effectively marketing goods and services. Content includes identifying target customers, branding, pricing, marketing communications, packaging and distribution channels. Students will compete in the AdSim Media Planning online simulation, create advertising campaigns, a marketing plan, and utilize concepts learned to critically examine relevant and current case studies. COURSE #0226
Course 2: Finance & Accounting (Year 1 Spring Semester)
This semester course focuses on three content areas: Investing, Accounting, and Personal Finance. In the investing unit students learn about stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, putting their learning into action by participating in the Stock Market Game. Each student runs a digital portfolio, tracking stock performance and cash flow, attempting to gain the most equity. The Accounting unit studies financial statements as they relate to assets, liabilities, and equity. Students create and mange statements, as well as analyze and debrief annual reports, using basic liquidity and profitability ratios. The Personal Finance unit addresses payroll concepts, credit, retirement plans, and taxes. COURSE #0225
Course 3: Business Management & Entrepreneurship Capstone (Year 2 Fall and Spring)
Students have the unique opportunity to run a simulated business through the Virtual Enterprise program. All participants create a resume and complete an interview for a position in the company. The students determine the nature of their business, its products/services, its management and structure, and engage in the daily operations of running a business. This program compliments the Management/Entrepreneurship curriculum, giving students a hands-on experience. Students will attend trade fairs to promote the business and enter competitive events against other local high schools. In addition to daily business operations, all students will maintain monthly personal finance records based on their position/salary. Students will make fixed and flexible payments, including house, car, and utility bills. In all, this course encompasses all areas of business education, ethics, financial literacy, technical skills, and promotes career development. COURSE #0263 - UC A-G Approved
OPTIONAL: Graphic Arts & Design / Photography
During the first half of the semester, the graphical design portion of the academy continues with students learning how to create vector-based drawings in Adobe Illustrator. Students will learn how to create and edit basic shapes, transform objects, work with both 2D and 3D type objects, and use colors and gradients in their drawings. Students will receive heavy exposure to various drawing tools in Illustrator and practice these tools in a variety of tracing and freehand assignments and projects. During the second half of the semester, the course will shift directions and move into the focus of creating, editing, and publication of various types of desktop publishing documents (including brochures, newsletters, posters, magazines, and catalogs) using Adobe InDesign. Students will learn how to set up master pages for multi-page documents, insert text and graphics into these layouts, thread text, and add various styles to the document. The lessons learned in this program will also help students interested in taking either the Journalism and Yearbook courses on campus as both programs are used in these courses.
The entire course focuses on the creation, modification, and manipulation of images for the Internet using the most popular professional image editing software in the industry today: Adobe Photoshop. Students begin the semester with an introduction to the proper types of fonts, colors, and layouts to use in graphic design. Students then begin Photoshop with simple editing and correcting of raster images, selecting and moving parts of an image, work blending and modifying of colors and shapes, and incorporating typographical design into their images. In addition, students will use masks and channels for complex editing tasks as well as work with layers and inserting/editing layer styles and effects in to their images. Students will be exposed to a number of real-world projects that prepare them for graphics typically created in both the webpage design and marketing industries.
The entire course focuses on the creation, modification, and manipulation of images for the Internet using the most popular professional image editing software in the industry today: Adobe Photoshop. Students begin the semester with an introduction to the proper types of fonts, colors, and layouts to use in graphic design. Students then begin Photoshop with simple editing and correcting of raster images, selecting and moving parts of an image, work blending and modifying of colors and shapes, and incorporating typographical design into their images. In addition, students will use masks and channels for complex editing tasks as well as work with layers and inserting/editing layer styles and effects in to their images. Students will be exposed to a number of real-world projects that prepare them for graphics typically created in both the webpage design and marketing industries.