Imagine a program that promised the opportunity to change your life: the opportunity to work side by side with some of Gainesville’s most successful business leaders in creating a mock company. Imagine — after applying to more places than you can count, going on interview after interview and struggling to find a job much less a living wage — that someone offered you the chance to change your career path. Then, imagine the bad news: that for no logical or rational reason, 25 percent of you would be randomly and summarily rejected.
The StartUp Quest program promised that participants would work in small groups with a mentor, and over the course of 10 weeks the participants would learn what it takes to start a company from scratch. The core of the company is built around an innovative technology borrowed from the University of Florida’s Office of Technology and Licensing, a program partner.The skills, experience and contacts participants were supposed to learn in starting this simulated company were supposed to be substantial. It was to be an invaluable asset in helping the participants to get a job or even start their own company. For someone like me, who’s been looking for a better career opportunity for months now, the program sounded perfect. It sounded like the answer to my prayers.
Funded by a grant from the Department of Labor to study how effective the program is at returning workers to the workforce, it was determined that not everyone accepted would actually be able to actively engage in the program. Because the program was funded by a study, it needed a control group to compare to the effects of the program on the program participants. As a result, we were told that one in every four of us would be part of this inactive control group.
The members of this control group would be participants without actually being able to participate. The chance to attend the educational sessions and work one-on-one with Gainesville’s best and brightest minds wouldn’t be available to that 25 percent. Not only would we not be able to participate, but because we would be technically “participating” the first time around, we would not be eligible to participate in the future either. The lack of alternatives was even more frustrating. If anyone dropped from the program, his or her slot would remain unfilled.
It seems wrong. It seems unethical and immoral. Although the program may not be exactly fraudulent, and although those who actually get to participate will no doubt benefit, after all the promises of what this program would do for me, I can’t feel help but feel that those promises were empty.
I’m sure they wouldn’t say that their actions were fraudulent, but for me and many others in Gainesville, it sure felt like it.
Steven Craig is a UF alumnus. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 9/13/2013 under the headline "Business program in Gainesville is disappointing"
