After dropping out of college, Nasha Barnes wanted to make sure no one else would do the same.

“I remember this statement that was said to me and is still said today, and it irks me so badly,” Barnes said. “I was told, ‘Turn to your left and turn to your right, one of you will not be here at the end.’”

Barnes attended Syracuse University on a scholarship to study journalism. But lacking the necessary social skills, she dropped out. She returned a few years later to finish her degree and upon graduation, she went to Columbia University for graduate school. She now owns, and singlehandedly operates, Aim Higher Enterprises, a small business that provides teenage girls with general life skills and fosters women in business.

The company was inspired by her rocky college experience, and since opening in 2010, has branched out into several subsidiaries, including Girls Aim Higher, a mentoring program for young female students. About a month ago, Barnes hosted her first college tour for Girls Aim Higher at SU.

She now works out of the South Side Innovation Center, whose goal is to foster small businesses in the South Side neighborhood of Syracuse. She is also a motivational speaker and author. Every part of her business — lectures and books included — is an effort to teach students the skills to maneuver through college.

“It hurt me later on when I realized that I was that person who wasn’t there in the end,” Barnes said.

A native of Syracuse, Barnes has made the city’s schools the focus of her projects. She works closely with high school girls and shows them what college is really like so they don’t feel like a “deer in headlights” upon arrival — all premeditated attempts to reduce college dropout rates.

“This is the real-talk tour,” she said. “I’m going to work with them one on one so we can get real about what they need to face.”

The services she offers under the Girls Aim Higher program include hands-on walking tours through campuses. Barnes goes beyond the monolithic buildings and actually gives high school students a chance to interact with those in college.

Included in the program is a strong emphasis on life skills, which is what India Dancil, Barnes’s daughter and a volunteer, said is the most effective part.

“It kind of shocked me that there are things you think everyone should already know,” Dancil said. “She had students doing research on computers in the lab and figuring out what they want to do with their futures, and seeing what it actually takes.”

In her first tour at SU, Barnes took students to dorms, dining halls and classrooms. Along the way they stopped to talk with students and professors about the “nitty-gritty” aspects of college life.

“We asked a lot about how you handle relationships, time management, procrastination and financial issues,” Barnes said. “You should have seen their faces.”

It’s that disbelief in students’ eyes that proves her services are making a difference, she said. Noticing that the Girls Aim Higher program has been working, Barnes now plans to extend her business to 14 undisclosed states by 2015.

It’s a lofty goal for someone who operates out of Syracuse, but Barnes has already spoken with people in several states. One of her connections is Crystal Gunn, the CEO of the Amazing Woman Network in Southfield, Mich.

Gunn’s company provides women with the resources and platforms necessary to be taken seriously in business. She said joining forces with Barnes was an easy decision because they both want to empower women and young girls.

Together, Gunn said she and Barnes will be training eight women across the country to act as supervisors at different college campuses. They will then serve as liaisons for Barnes to check in on all of the students. If things go according to plan, the number of mentors will increase well beyond eight people. Barnes has it all thought out, Gunn said.

Said Gunn: “She’s brilliant, and I love brilliance. I talk with Nasha [Barnes] more than anyone else, we have so many ideas that just flow into another.”

Published on December 2, 2013 at 12:01 am

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