UNM professor Doug Thomas required his students to give back to the community as part of his strategic management course curriculum.
Thomas said he sent his MBA students to Albuquerque high schools to teach management skills for a competition that took place in the SUB on Monday.
"They serve, and they learn at the same time," he said.
Hunched over laptops in groups of four or five, teams from high schools around the state competed in an online simulation game called JA Titan. The teams were required to create high-tech manufacturing companies that produce and sell Halo-Generators, a fake product. At the end, the team with the highest profit wins, Thomas said.
Zero Inc., a team from Gallup that competed online, won the competition. Bryan Co. from Eldorado High School took second place. They each received a DVD player and will have the chance to compete in the regional competition.
Bryan Co. team member Richard Shepard, 17, said he was content with coming in second.
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"I'm just happy we got this far," he said.
Thomas said he could have volunteered with the competition in his spare time, but involving his students was important.
"I've got free labor right here in my classroom," he said, laughing.
He said his 36 students paired up and went to different schools.
Andrew Steele, one of Thomas's graduate students, said his experience mentoring teenagers at Highland High School was rewarding.
"Highland is a very diverse school," he said. "There are people from all walks of life there who bring different business ideas without having a formal business education but just more from personal experience."
He taught a classroom of 25 to 30 students and put them into teams to compete in JA Titan.
"They have a lesson plan built into the program," Steele said. "We'd expand on them, because some of them were way too in-depth, and some had not nearly enough information."
He said a competition was held to determine which team would be competing at UNM.
Lydia Rockwell was assigned to mentor at Rio Rancho High School two days per week. She said she went into the experience not feeling confident in her knowledge of business.
"It really reminded me of all the education I've gotten from the Anderson school," she said. "I went in thinking that I really didn't learn anything and came out understanding that I've really taken a lot away."
Bryan Hardy, 18, also from Bryan Co., said his team didn't have help from MBA students. He said this year's competition wasn't any tougher than the last one.
"It was almost the same game," Hardy said. "There was an immediate price war. Everyone started dropping their prices immediately."
Helen Salazar, education director for Junior Achievement of New Mexico, said the price of the product is always a big factor in the game.
"Price competition is a big one," she told Hardy. "There's always a price drop."
Thomas said there was another reason for bringing the competition to the University.
"We're recruiting students to UNM," he said. "This is the best of the best."
Rockwell agreed. She said the students she worked with at Rio Rancho High School were enthusiastic and knowledgeable about business.
"They're really good at business," she said. "Some of the students need to be students at Anderson now."
Junior Achievement of New Mexico, Intel and Sandia National Laboratories sponsored the competition.
