The Mt. Pleasant Gi-tec’s BPA chapter had its regional competition last Saturday, January 20th. There were some exciting results, 29 of the members qualified for the state leadership competition that will be held in Grand Rapids this March! These members have been working hard since October to qualify, but many students don’t even know that BPA exists.
BPA is often overlooked because it can be confusing at first glance, but isn’t very complicated once explained. BPA stands for Business Professionals of America. Each member chooses two events that they will prepare for and compete in, they start at the regional level and work their way up to national. There’s a large range of topics that the events are about including, marketing, finance, law, business, health administration, web design, and many more! They can include things like taking a test, making documents, preparing a slideshow, or presenting. But there are also non competitive parts of BPA like Torch, which is where members answer prompts about things they may have already done and can get recognition for. After a member chooses their event they spend several weeks preparing for it and when it comes time for Regionals they either present to judges, take a test, or do whatever their event involves and wait for the awards ceremony to see the results.
This year many individuals qualified for states as well as teams including the Global Marketing Team, Presentation Team, Small Business Management Team, and the Video Production Team. Some of the individuals even placed 1st in their event, including the President of BPA, Lilly Sponseller who placed in Advanced Interview Skills, Piyush Saraiya in Banking/Finance and the Financial Math/Analysis Open, Derek Deans in C++ Programming, Sarah Goward in Fundamentals of Web Design, Anelio Russo in the Information Technology Concepts Open, and Jacqueline Ko in Presentation Individual. Even though they were all working hard at regionals they still were able to enjoy it and make memories!
Rawan Alzayyat who placed 2nd in Fundamental Spreadsheet Applications said “Even though it was stressful and I was focused on preparing for my event I still had a lot of fun! It was great to see everyone working hard and getting the final details down but still hanging out, working together, and having fun.” Some people enjoy it for other reasons though, Kyla Henry said her favorite part of BPA was “Dressing up in my blazer and feeling like a real business woman” she felt like she got a ton of confidence from just wearing a blazer, it made her feel better about presenting and competing in her events. “I was pretty nervous that I was going to forget my lines for our presentation on Non-Compete Clauses, but when I put on my suit I felt great! it was actually a lot of fun to present in front of the Judges, and I didn’t forget any lines!” Mari Marshall proudly said, she is a member of the Presentation Management Team so professionalism and lines were extremely important.
These hard working members will keep practicing and working hard at their events to be able compete at states with the goal of qualifying for the National Leadership Conference, which is being held in Chicago this year!
