CLEVELAND — Junior Achievement inspires and prepares young people for success.
They recently teamed up with Citizens for a survey, that revealed what high school students think about college, career aspirations, and overall financial preparedness.
One of the things that stood out in the survey is that 40% of teens wanna be social media influencers.
"That was very shocking to me really seeing how big that number was compared to how students feel about the four-year degree." Karson Suppes said. "Especially just coming from my friends and the people I talk to, a lot of the people that I know are going to college for a four-year degree. I am myself."
Suppes, with the help of Junior Achievement, has started her own company, Safe Chain.
It was birthed from a friend's terrible car accident.
Her sales manager was hit by someone who was on the phone while driving.
"We were all like there has to be something that we can do about this. What is something you have to have in your car? Oh, your keys, keychains. That's how we decided to create the key chain and then the message on it reads "Text me when you get home." So by seeing texting when you get home, every single time you get in the car, it'll just trigger your brain to actually, you know, put your phone down and be safe," Suppes said.
Suppes shared her company would not exist without the guidance and resources provided by Junior Achievement.
"What makes our programs work are the community volunteers that we recruit from companies like Citizens, to go into the classrooms and be that positive role model. So we provide you know curriculum and content and hands-on activities, wonderful learning opportunities for our students and our teachers," Denise Schafer, Junior Achievement Vice President of Programs, said.
The research shows that teens are very concerned about incurring student loan debt, making college less attractive. It also stated that teens value work they enjoy, over work that pays well.
Suppes said passion is a key part of her success.
"Sometimes at the end of the day when I had a hard day at work, a hard day at school, you know, a hard day with the whole key-chain production, I could have so easily, just quit and said I give up. And there were times where I genuinely was like, this is too much for me right now. But at the end of the day, I was genuinely passionate about it and that was kind of the fuel to my fire to keep going," Suppes said.
