Student Spotlight 2-27-19
Student Spotlight[edit | edit source]
A Slice of Entrepreneurship
A Student Spotlight Piece
Creating a baking business requires a commitment to excellence, attention to detail, and avid creativity for formulating sweet treats. It’s something that young aspiring bakers hold as a dream, but one that can seem out of reach when accompanied by a seemingly endless pile of school work and extracurricular responsibilities. With an online education, it’s possible to accomplish this feat while obtaining a quality high school experience. Meet Angel Bailey, one of the many students here who thrives off of the flexibility that online school offers. Her successful baking business, Kayke, is a testament to her impressive time management and baking expertise.
As a curious eight-year old armed with merely a box of cake mix, Bailey’s spark for baking was ignited. With the aid of technological developments and an eye for creative outlets, her commitment to learning the precise science of baking grew. Her favorite way to explore new recipes, methods, and gain inspiration is through the simple application that has grown in its popularity alongside the DIY movement, Pinterest. Angel continues to grow in her baking expertise and can now successfully complete complex recipes that leave a majority of home bakers with cake pans of disappointment and frustration. Now, her favorite thing to bake is French Macarons, a meringue-based confection that lends itself to baking prestige alongside its airy, light texture. Thanks to the trustworthy companionship of her most prized possession, a pink KitchenAid Stand Mixer, Angel is prepared to take on mastering the precise science of any baking recipe.
Baking requires the artful combination of precisely measured amounts of ingredients; any extraneous amounts threaten to throw off the balance that permits diverse types of pastry or bread to hold the desired taste and texture. Angel’s organization in the kitchen is paralleled with her organization in the classroom. She has attended Northstar since her freshman year of high school, so with three years of experience, her schedule has been perfected. For her, methodical planning is the base ingredient that contributes to her success as an online learner and positive contributor to the classroom. By aligning herself with realistic goals, she is able to achieve feats that “[she] could never accomplish going to public school or working with no schedule at all.” Online school has helped Angel thrive in her topics of choice, even prompting her to serve as a resource to help her friends who attend public school with their studies. She takes advantage of the course selection flexibility to study things she is genuinely excited to learn about, like astronomy and economics. Being able to choose when she studies has also had a significant impact on the opportunities Angel takes advantage of outside of the classroom. She loves that she has been able to attend conferences, capture early sunrises with her photographic knowledge, make new connections, practice being adaptable to new environments, and of course build her name as a young entrepreneur in the baking field.
While Angel typically serves as the sole employee for baking and delivering in her business, she still considers herself a social butterfly. Unlike the false connotations of online school students being restricted to keeping to themselves, she finds that her schedule is actually conducive to spending more time with her friends and family. The support of her family in her business has also been beneficial for her self-taught baking experience; her mother has always been there in her younger years to persevere through the learning curves as her equipment and methods grew more advanced. While she does occasionally miss the face-to-face teaching experience of traditional schooling, Bailey has learned to acclimate to the online school platform of communication through accessible teachers, group discussions with students, and even connecting by means of social media with a few of her peers.
So, what’s next? If you’re lucky enough to live in the area, then please do enjoy the dazzling macarons, mouth-watering lava cakes, and rich cupcake creations that Angel delivers locally. For now, this talented baking sensation will continue to be optimistic about online school infusing a spirit of progress in her future. Angel is grateful that “online school allows a student to really stretch out and reach for the stars” and based on her current ambitions, there is no doubt that she has a bright future. Thanks to her inspired spirit and Northstar Academy’s support, this high schooler makes early entrepreneurship look like a piece of Kayke.