While many people associate summer camp with tents or cabins, hikes in the woods, telling stories around a fire and roasting marshmallows, North Carolina Central University (NCCU) offers a variety of camps to those in high school or younger that are outside the traditional.
Early Money Management Skills
One day in June, high schoolers paired up at the university track. In preparation for a three-legged race, a Velcro strap attached one person’s right leg to the other’s left leg. There is a lot of laughter among the participants.
Appearances are deceiving. This is actually the Peggy Ward Financial Education Center Wealth Management Camp, which teaches high school students essential money management skills.
Prior to arriving at the track that day, the 22 students learned about budgeting, creating S.M.A.R.T. goals, credit cards, credit card debt, savings, insurance and tax.
“We want them to come and get educated but also to have fun,” said Tiffany Murray, Ph.D., camp director and a managing director at the Society for Financial Education & Professional Development.
Besides personal finance, the participants learned job-search skills, home ownership, employer benefits, investment and retirement planning, estate planning – key elements to assist with closing the wealth gap between African American and white households. The camp culminates with team presentations on Friday to guest judges about a hypothetical family with a variety of financial concerns.
Speakers during the week include representatives from Stearns Financial Group, Fidelity Investments and university faculty.
On the fun side, participants tour the NCCU campus, participate in an “Olympics,” take part in an etiquette dinner and visit Frankie’s Fun Park in Raleigh.
The camp is free, paid for by grants and alumni contributions including by Peggy Ward. This year, 76 high school students from around the country applied.
For Leanna Sutton of Raleigh, the Wealth Management Camp is timely as the high school junior gained her first job last fall, working as a hostess in a restaurant.
“I wanted to see how to manage my money and learn about credit and debt,” she said.
Amira Hines, a junior from Knightdale, North Carolina, gained a new perspective.
“I thought credit cards were a bad thing,” she said. “They are not as long as you pay them off (monthly). As you use them responsibly, they can bring up your credit score.”
Legal Eaglets
Lithemba Ncaca, 15, has been interested in law for years.
“I’ve been a very argumentative person since I was young,” Lithemba said. “My parents always told me I would be a good lawyer.”
At J.D. Clement Early College High School on the campus of NCCU, he enrolled in a law and forensics class. He enjoyed it and a teacher suggested he attend the Legal Eagle Law Camp at the NCCU School of Law.
This is his second summer attending the camp.
Lithemba says he is most drawn to civil rights law. He thinks the Legal Eagle Law Camp is a good introduction for people who are considering a career as an attorney.
Sarai Seegaras, 13, was enrolled in the camp by her mother “so I can have that background knowledge if I ever do want to go into law.”
Sarai enjoys watching cases unfold, which she compares to a mystery.
“Earlier today, we did direct examination and cross examination,” she said. “I like that. I like a lot of plot twists.”
The week-long camp builds up to a mock trial on Friday. Along the way, there are panel discussions, interactive activities, simulations of such activities as direct and cross examinations and team building. Participants are exposed to a range of law practice areas and career paths and also learn the importance of citizenship, ethics and resilience.
The aim of Legal Eagle Law Camp is to expose young people to the law, particularly minority students, said Lakethia Jefferies, director of the Legal Eagle Law Camp and director of the pro-bono clinic and externship program at the NCCU School of Law.
“According to a 2020 American Bar Association study, African Americans make up 5% of the legal profession,” Jefferies said. That percentage has not changed in the previous decade, according to the study.
Lydia Lavelle, J.D., a professor at the School of Law, came up with the idea for Legal Eagle Law Camp in 1993 and starting in 1997 served as camp director for several years.
BRITE Students
In a teaching laboratory on the second floor of the Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE) building, students don latex-free gloves, white lab coats and safety goggles. During their experiment, they transfer DNA samples into small tubes, along with a master mix solution. They then put the tubes into a mini centrifuge and from there into a PCR machine for overnight processing.
One of those students is Chinmaya Kothapalli, a high school junior from Charlotte. “I want to go into biosciences as a career,” he said. “I feel these experiments are more in depth than the ones we do in high school.”
Jeyly Magana, a junior from Durham, heard about the program from her high school biology teacher. She enjoys performing lab experiments and also living on campus for two weeks.
“You get the college experience,” she said.
Students visit biotechnology companies in the area, engage with NCCU students, faculty and staff and representatives of biotechnology companies. In addition, they learn about financial literacy, entrepreneurship and college and career readiness.
Almost every morning, students perform an experiment facilitated by Betty Brown, STEM outreach coordinator. One morning during the first session in June, students learned how DNA from a crime scene can be copied and analyzed.
The Summer Immersion Experience in Biotech is a bit different than the other campus summer camps. This year there were more than 200 applications for 48 slots, said Carla Oldham, Ph.D., an associate research professor. Applicants had to submit a transcript and a letter of recommendation from a high school science or math teacher.
The rising eleventh and twelfth grade students that are accepted sleep at George Street Residence Hall for the entire two-week program. At its end, each student will receive a $1,000 stipend thanks to a grant from NC GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, which funds the program.
“Jobs in in the life science industry are really plentiful within the state of North Carolina and the jobs pay really well,” Oldham said. “We are letting the (high school) students know these jobs exist and hopefully attracting some of these students to NCCU.”
Since 2022 when Summer Immersion in Biotech Experience began, the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences has enrolled eight students that were former summer participants, she said.
Cyber Security
Over at the NCCU School of Business, 20 rising ninth and tenth grade students – many from underrepresented communities and rural parts of North Carolina – sit in front of laptops in a second-floor classroom while hearing about installing software.
During the five-day GenCyber Camp, students will learn about social engineering, ethical hacking, drone flight and safety and privacy. They also learn to disassemble and reassemble a computer and forensic investigations.
The camp, which is free thanks to a first-time grant from the National Science Foundation and National Security Agency, also supplies breakfast and lunch to participants.
“We want to bring awareness of the cybersecurity field that underrepresented populations might not be aware of,” said Deanne Cranford-Wesley, Ph.D., director of the NCCU Cybersecurity Laboratory. “African American males and females are underrepresented in the cybersecurity field as well as Latinos.”
Every day there is a speaker from a different part of the industry discussing career options in cybersecurity.
Treyvon Pearson, a 10th grader from Raleigh, has studied cybersecurity at his high school but wanted to expand his skills.
“I’ve learned about putting commands into the terminal and using Linux,” Pearson said.
Ima Paul, also a 10th grader from Raleigh, enrolled out of curiosity.
“I don’t know if I’ll go into cybersecurity, but I want to try out different things to see what I like,” she said.
