For students interested in business, many schools offer classes related to learning the inner-workings of an industry –– how to theoretically manage finances, market goods and provide a selected service to consumers –– but Blue Valley takes it one step further by giving students real-life experiences and applications with the Marketing Management class run by business teacher Kathy Peres.

The School Store consists of the Tigers Inc. Cafe and the apparel shop and is run by Senior Rose Dersch, the executive manager of the Marketing Management class. She oversees all of the lines –– coffee, strategic marketing, apparel, custom and feeder, and financial –– that make up the business and makes sure it all runs smoothly.

Dersch joined the class second semester of her freshman year and quickly became an integral part of the operation.

“School store at the time had three seniors and no underclassmen to take on the job, so they brought me in at semester, trained me for second semester of my freshman year, and then expected me to train a new staff my sophomore year,” she said.

Dersch became manager of the financial line her junior year and the transition from a staff member to a leader was familiar yet different for her.

“It was stepping into a role I already had — getting a title for a job that I was already doing,” she said. “Stepping from financial manager to exec was definitely way different because the job is nothing alike. You’re still a leader, but nobody really teaches you the difference and how to lead a group of people doing a specific job versus leading the whole staff with a bunch of different jobs. They really just threw me in and said, figure it out.”

Although the jump from line manager to executive manager was tough, Dersch has learned to adapt to her new role and duties that consist of customer service and overall management of the class.

“Unfortunately, I’m mostly answering emails day-to-day,” she said. “Most of my job is communicating with customers or giving them to the proper rep. Other than that, it’s just assisting Peres with shift points and grades, or trying to come up with ways for things to work better.”

Being pushed into a leadership position early-on, Dersch has learned a multitude of new skills to apply in her everyday life.

“I’ve definitely learned to delegate –– it’s really important,” she said. “When you’re managing a staff of people who you are responsible for keeping busy, you have to give them something to do, and you have to teach them how to do it. I got really good at teaching, training, things like that.”

Dersch believes having these abilities and growing her expertise now will help her later in life. “Managerial skills will help you in any job, so learning how to lead is always a good thing,” she said. “Communication is a lifelong skill that’s super important, and I think it takes people much longer to realize how you should communicate than the kids that we have in the classroom because they realize early on how important it is.”

No matter the line, Marketing Management is a great way to increase a student’s skills and heighten your experiences working in a business environment. It offers a unique understanding of operating a business that will put students ahead in many college applications.

“It’s different in the way that you’re not sitting and you’re not being lectured, you’re actually doing hands on kinesthetic learning,” she said. “You learn more that way. You learn more about the business world and about product demand, and consumer sciences. I don’t think you need to have any skills [to start], but the skills you need to be a leader, you learn while you’re there. You have to be able to just keep going.”