By ANNAMARIE VIGIL and ALEX PLASENCIA

Citrus Valley High School’s Virtual Enterprise was recently awarded the Silver Award for impact marketing in Bakersfield, California. This accomplishment was significant for the course.

Citrus Valley senior Jereth Guzman, who has been involved with Virtual Enterprise since his freshman year, says, “It’s basically a class that creates not a real business, but a virtual business. We come up with ideas of what we want to create.” Virtual Enterprise gives students an opportunity to work together to be successful in pitching products and obtaining the interest of potential investors. Students in the Virtual Enterprise class are very committed to what they do. Those in the class are required to take a virtual online business class their freshman and sophomore year, so students in this class are very well-trained and professional by their junior and senior year.

When asked what the most valuable lesson learned from Virtual Enterprise is, students Joe Vigil and Jereth Guzman, both members of the class, agree that public speaking plays a prominent role. Guzman says, “It’s been a big help in not being nervous or getting caught up in words, it helps me in being fluent and straight to the point.” Vigil shares, “you have to interact with everyone and convince people, buy your product. You really have to engage in conversation.” Not only is the class essential to learning how to create and maintain a business, but the class also teaches students confidence and to work as a team effectively. “It’s interesting,” Vigil shares, “You get real close to people because it’s a small class.”

To those who are interested in Virtual Enterprise, current students recommend that potential students understand that the class works very hard to be successful. Guzman adds, “You should definitely join to learn how to enhance your skills if you’re really interested in business and learning the whole aspect of it. If you’re not sure about joining, just know you’ll always be doing something, the whole time, you will be busy.”

Both students share the same interests in wanting to pursue business and management in the future, “I’ve always been fond of business, and it’s definitely a career I want to take on in the future,” Guzman says. Students interested in business are encouraged to take this class, Vigil shares, “It’s not as hard as you think it would be.”

The class also participates in multiple competitions and have yet to complete them all. According to Guzman, “We have one more competition. We didn’t get gold at the last competition, unfortunately, so we couldn’t move on to the trade show in New York, but we’re going to Los Angeles soon to compete again and kind of learn from our imperfections and hopefully get gold there.”

When asked what the gold award represents, Guzman states, “That’s basically the end, it’s more of like a title, and we earn self-motivation. We get awards depending on what you did proficiently, like overall, booth design and presentation. We usually get awards individually. There’s also a lot of colleges that go to the trade shows, and they look at you, and how well you present yourself, and sometimes if you’re lucky and really sell them, they’ll give you the option of attending their school.”

This year, CV’s Virtual Enterprise program has earned one bronze, six silver, and one silver state awards. In the future, Virtual Enterprise hopes to continue placing in competitions and eventually winning gold.