My experience at the Amgen STEM Entrepreneurship Program

Biotech company Amgen hosted a teen STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) entrepreneurship program for high-schoolers during the summer from July 28th to July 31st, which I had the privilege of attending. During my time here, I was both able to learn from field profession through lectures, as well as get some hands-on experience with creating and proposing a product idea with my group. This camp was definitely beneficial towards my growth as a student aiming to work with technology and science in the future, but was it as good as it could be?

The summer program Amgen put together had a big team focus. In weeks leading up to the camp, participants would have to do different forms and assignments that would help camp leaders decide how to create teams. As a result, teams are not chosen by students, but rather those in charge. A little before the camp begins, students will receive their team as well as their assigned role. This sets them up for their assigned task.

The objective for each team is to create a product idea and pitch for a given category. There were five different categories, each representing a different idea related to . For example, my category was based around personalized learning and educational equity. At the last day of the camp, teams would present their pitch to a team of judges, and the team with the best pitch would win in their respective category. Two winners are selected for each category: a first place winner and a second place winner.

In order to prepare for the pitch, teams are given time during each of the four days to collaborate with each other in the creation of their product and pitch. This includes working on technology, finance, marketing, presentation, and general idea of the project. Additionally, teams would occasionally work with an adult mentor experienced with STEM to help guide them.

In periods of time where students are not collaborating with each other, they would usually be watching lectures given by field professionals, which included Amgen workers with varying positions in the company, entrepenuers, and more. Lecture topics included marketing, finance, artificial intelligence, and in general, subjects that would be useful in creating a company/product.

In total, each day of the camp would run from around 9 AM to 5:30 PM, amounting to around 8 hours per day.

Overall, I thought the camp was well organized and good use of each of the lengthy days. While 8 hours is quite a long time, it tended to go by pretty quickly because students were constantly doing something, whether it be listening to a lecture or collaborating with the team. All activities were also extremely productive as well: I always learned something new from a lecture and created something new in collaborative time.

However, there are definitely some small changes that could be made to make for an even better camp. Although I enjoyed the lectures, at times, they tended to be quite long, especially because they were back to back with speaker after another. At times, teens would be sitting in the auditorium for 3 hours just listening to people talk, which was not super engaging and led to a lot of people becoming bored and eager to do something else.

I think this issue could easily be remedied by simply breaking up lectures and spreading them more evenly across the day. For example, instead of having a 3 hour session and a 1 hour session, there could be 4 different 1 hour sessions.

And while not an issue for me, some students had issues with the fact that their teams were randomly assigned. Naturally, there would be instances where teens would have issues with other members in their team, whether it be because they wouldn’t do their work or simply because they didn’t have good chemistry. Tons of people in the camp registered with their friends, and a good majority of those people would like to be on the same team as their friends.

This potential problem could be fixed by allowing students to request preferred team members when registering for the program. Those signing up alone, or wishing to be assigned randomly, could simply leave this section blank, while others could list individuals they would like to be matched with. This could make the camp more enjoyable and successful for some.

Overall, the Amgen Summer STEM Program was definitely really fun and useful, and despite some slight shortcomings, I would recommend it to any high schooler interested in STEM.