Oak Park FBLA took home third place in sweepstakes at the regional conference held at Westlake High School.

Future Business Leaders of America is a club for middle school, high school and collegiate-level students that provides an opportunity to learn about the world of business through hands-on learning.

Oak Park High School, among other surrounding schools, was given an opportunity to compete in a county-level competition. California schools who participate in FBLA are broken down into-sections and compete within those groups.

“We are in the Gold Coast section; we competed against other Gold Coast teams like Arcadia,” freshmen Prinaka Drona said.

Co-presidents Asesh Panchapakesan and Vaishnavi Tipireddy and secretary Grace Ma lead the FBLA club at OPHS.

“The officers and I really focused on preparing the students this year because preparation is key to doing well at competition,” Ma wrote to the Talon. “The main resources they used were practice tests and Quizlets. Mr. Winkler also has a collection of textbooks of each topic, and those are very helpful as well.”

Students began preparing for the upcoming competition months in advance.

“Krisha [Thakur] and I started to prepare for competition by writing a script a month in advance,” Drona said. “We started to record and rehearse two weeks before competition.”

Drona was not the only student to begin preparing for the competition ahead of time, according to freshman Karina Patel, who placed seventh in Intro to FBLA.

“I prepared for the competition by doing the practice tests that they emailed us and by researching stuff online,” Patel said. “[The practice was] not mandatory but I decided to do it because I wanted to place.”

FBLA students met at Westlake high school at 8 a.m. to compete in their individual and group portions.

“At competition we were all kind of stressed and wanted to do well in our part of the competition,” Drona said.

At 3 p.m., students filed into Westlake High School to watch the award ceremony. OPHS placed in the top ten for every event and came in first or second place for six out of the 38 competitions. Students from OPHS won many different awards such as Future Business Leader, Job Interview, Accounting I, Accounting II and 34 others.

“I would have to say that the award ceremony was the most stressful part of the competition because it was nerve racking to see whether we failed or not,” Drona said.

Drona and Patel acknowledge that practicing before competing is beneficial towards winning.

“Don’t procrastinate in any of your individual or team events because it will backfire,” Drona said. “Procrastinating is a big mistake even if competition seems far away at the time.”

26 students from OPHS are eligible to go to the State Leadership Conference in April. This competition is different from the last as all schools from California will be competing. This statewide competition will occur in April, giving OPHS FBLA students two months to prepare their topics.

“Winning was one of the best feelings ever, just standing there and realizing you had done something worth acknowledging. It just felt so great,” Drona said.

Ma also had some words of advice to all incoming members of FBLA.

“I know competition can sound intimidating, but honestly, each conference is so much more than just a competition. It’s a time where you meet new people, challenge yourself, and reach your accomplishments, you learn so much about yourself,” Ma wrote. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you place in competition, the priceless achievement is seeing yourself grow as a person.”