High School Students Visit Yale SOM for Introduction to Careers in Business and Economics
SOM partnered with Seeds of Fortune, an organization that helps young women of color navigate the college application process, to bring 40 students to campus for a week of learning and exploration.
On a recent August morning, several dozen rising high school seniors milled around a Yale SOM classroom, eating donuts and quietly rehearsing group presentations. They had come to New Haven through Seeds of Fortune, a college prep program that aims to expose young women of color to careers in business and economics, and they were preparing to present research projects, on subjects from redlining and the New Deal to the Great Recession and COVID-19, to a group of parents, mentors, and Yale faculty members. Those projects marked the culmination of a months-long learning journey, and an introduction to the post-secondary educational opportunities available to them, at Yale and beyond.
“It expands their aspirations and provides real-life examples of careers they can enter related to economics and business,” says Nitiya Walker, the founder of Seeds of Fortune. “We want to plant the seeds—no pun intended—for them to go to grad school or get an MBA, even though that’s years down the line.”
Walker founded Seeds of Fortune in 2014 to help young women from underserved communities navigate the college application process and secure scholarships from competitive universities. In 2021, the organization partnered with Yale’s Women in Economics (WiE) club to create Seed Scholars, a program specifically focused on economics. Initially, students completed an online module on the foundations of economics, followed by a series of virtual presentations by Yale economics faculty and leaders at various public and private financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve. The students completed their capstone projects with the help of a Yale College mentor.
That program has expanded since SOM joined the partnership last year. Professors Vahideh Manshadi and Judith Chevalier, experts in the operation of online platforms and industrial organization, respectively, volunteered to give lectures. The students’ week-long trip to Yale now includes an SOM campus tour, an information session with the school’s admissions team, and a presentation by Roz Wiggins, senior lecturer in management, about the work of the Yale Program on Financial Stability. The night before their final presentations, several students practiced for college admissions interviews with a group of volunteers including Professor Katja Seim and SOM alum Shubo Yin ’23.
“As soon as I saw this organization, I was excited,” said Wiggins, who coordinates SOM’s partnership with Seeds of Fortune. “Having worked with economists for 10 years, unfortunately, I’ve seen that there isn’t a lot of diversity in the profession. Programs like Seeds of Fortune expose students to the profession who might not otherwise consider it and help them join the pipeline.”
This year’s cohort of 40 students from across the country gave lively presentations on recessions and depressions, price systems, the labor market, government economic intervention, and agricultural pathways. Their projects often included on-the-ground research: one group conducted a video interview with an Atlanta nail salon owner about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on her business.
Walker says the program aims to help students understand the connections between economic policy and their own lives. “Once they learn the principles, we ask them, ‘How is this playing out in your local community?’” she says. “Now that they understand how the system has come to be, students can evaluate the impact it has on their neighborhoods.”
Indeed, one student explained during a presentation on major recessions in American history that seeing firsthand how families struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic made her interested in learning about government responses to other financial crises.
In the coming months, Seeds of Fortune staff will guide students through the process of applying to college, choosing a school, and securing scholarships. Walker said that about 90% of Seeds Scholars participants earn significant financial aid, and students from previous cohorts have gone on to attend Yale College. A college education, she says, paves the way for students to achieve economic security for themselves and drive broader social change.
“We want to build the future leaders that understand how the world works, so that they can go back and change their communities,” she says.
