It is common for young teenagers to be really interested and devoted to a personal hobby outside of school such as drawing, making clothes, or filming movies. With sports as the main focus of the curriculum at most highschools and many students given an organized path to pursue athletic endeavors, students who are interested in creating something artistic need to seek out opportunities independently if a hobby is something they want to take a step further. For students Caroline Gauri ’22, Genaro Ng ‘22, Stav Okanin ’23, and myself, this means taking our passion for making jewelry as a hobby to the next step and developing a business to reach a wider audience. 

Growing up I have always been very creative and interested in lots of different things from drawing, to making clothes, to my iconic slime account @yachty.slimes,  and now currently putting together a small business with Stav making and selling jewelry @madebysojewels. 

“Our business is for our CAS project for IB as something to get involved with the community,”  Caroline Gauri ‘22 said. “I’ve had fun making rings for awhile and Genaro has made phone charms in the past so we decided to create a business would be a smart endeavor.” 

Caroline and Genaro have been doing the same in their free time as something to get involved with the community and a requirement for their IB cast project. We are also trying to get our jewelry sold at lunch so we are looking forward to that.

So what goes into creating a small business and can anyone do it? My partner Stav Okanin clarifies that “anyone can start a small business but to have it thrive you need to make time for it on the weekends and think smarter not harder.” 

So it may be difficult but making time for hobbies like a jewelry business on top of school and extracurriculars but if you do have spare time it can be really fun and a huge benefit for students in the future.