4A- Forming an Opportunity Belief

1) Your Beginning Point: Schools no longer offer classes to provide skills to learn new trades such as auto mechanics, wood shops, and home economics.

2) Describe your belief: I believe schools like High school should include electives that teach students everyday skills and trades that they are not usually exposed to. I believe there is a shortage now for students and people who know how to change a tire and basic woodworking skills. These skills are essential in the real business world and I think it is sad that this is not a common area that people are exposed to. I think people who are not as successful academically in school or not financially able to go to college should get the opportunity to explore different fields where they may find success and a possible future job. This need is due to budget cuts in school. When my parents went to school they had the option to go to the wood shop and learn how to build things and learn to work on cars. I think these classes should be offered as electives because it would provide opportunities for people who have never been exposed to these everyday skills. The way people are dealing with this now is paying to go to trade school when they could have had this exposure early on in life. Also, since many people have no experience with this they may have not even discovered that a certain trade is their passion or that they are very skilled at a certain practice. I think many people are not exposed to or aware of this opportunity. If schools provided it as an elective there would be a 100% opportunity for students to have access to these new skills and learn what they would probably never have been exposed to. For the people who don't like school or can't graduate, they can be introduced into a new field they would not have known about and go to trade school to get better for just the fraction of cost that going to college would be.

Prototypical Customer #1: The first prototypical customer I talked to was my good friend Jack who never was a big fan of school and ended up going to trade school for welding. He said he probably would have been way more engaged in school if they offered different skill classes which he could explore and try out. He noted how he wished that trade school and skills that don't require a bachelors degree should become more normalized and that people should be exposed to these options at a younger age. He decided to go to trade school while still in high school because he knew college would never be for him. He is extremely successful at construction company and is making a solid living salary.

Prototypical Customer #2: The second prototypical customer I talked to was a guy that works around our house and around our neighborhood for different families. He expressed how he thought there was a desperate need for people who know how to be a carpenter. His business is growing and he is in need to find people with these skills but there are very few people who specialize in this. He said it takes him a lot longer to do projects because he works for himself and has yet to find someone to hire that could efficiently help him. He agreed that high schools should offer these basic skill classes so that more people are exposed to these and have a better idea of how it all works.

Prototypical Customer #3: I decided to interview my mom about this idea and she 100% agrees that high schools should still offer these trade skill classes. She told me that when she went to school they had a wood working shop and an auto mechanic elective that you could choose to take. She was disappointed to see that my generation did not have this option. She has noticed recently that construction and mechanic jobs are always in high demand and that many of the kids she teaches have no interest or have had no prior exposure to these sorts of high demand crafts. She believes that schools should bring these back because she feels it is a lost job route for people and especially for kids who don't know exactly what they want to do with their life.

Reflection: I was actually very happy and surprised with my results after talking to these people. I am glad that people realize how this is a lost art that kids should be exposed to throughout their education. I learned that trade skills will always be needed and utilized wherever you end up. If I hypothetically started a construction company I would need people with these wood working skills to help execute a project. I learned that society doesn't value these skills as much as they should be and I believe still that these skills should be exposed to students. I also was surprised to hear that many high school dropouts may have stayed in school if they knew about the other types of jobs out there that require hands on attention. 

Summary: I believe this opportunity still exists and should be considered to start coming back into the high school curriculum. If budget cuts forbid this I think there is still an opportunity to educate students about the different skills and trades that many of them probably haven't thought twice about. I think it is really important to start normalizing going to trade school and teaching kids real life skills that will always be needed in the workforce. I don't think my opportunity changed much from this exercise but I gained a lot of insight into why it is important. I think entrepreneurs should adapt accordingly to customer feedback. For this specific example, I gained a lot of knowledge about how other people feel about the subject and it fit in really well with my belief. If this was a brand new opportunity I think it is a good idea to do trial and error to see how the customers respond and adapt to a new product.