Business Professionals of America (BPA) is an organization that provides students with the opportunity to grow their skills in many things such as, Finance, Business Administration, Management, Marketing and Communicating, ect. However, there is a lot more to it than you may think! 

Sarah Goward, a BPA Nationals Qualifier, says that, “First, I had to qualify at regionals and then I had to qualify at states in order to go to nationals. At regionals I got first place in the global marketing team, first place in fundamentals of web design and first place in an open event, which is just a short test, at states I placed in global marketing team and got second place which took me to nationals because if you get top 2 at states in a team event you get to go.” 

The tests you have to take may vary in structure but Goward says, “Fundamentals of web design is a test for HTML and CSS which is creating a website so I created a website with the instructions they gave me. There are also 20 multiple choice questions. For an open event, they give you a multiple-choice packet and you just fill it out (there are different topics for every testing event).” 

If Goward could give any advice to someone looking to join BPA, it would be to “Look at the event list before you join so you have an idea of what you want to do once you join BPA, make sure you communicate with the mentor given to you if anything goes wrong or you need help. Once you do join BPA and get events make sure you look at your event guidelines and the event rubric so you can do the best you can do.”