Future Business Leaders of America go to state

Future Business Leaders of America sent 27 Oak Park High School students to the California state conference from April 12 through April 15.

OPHS students began the school year by selecting topics such as Intro to FBLA, Broadcast Journalism, Accounting I, Accounting II and several others. The students then had time to prepare their topics and finally, the students competed in a county-level competition.

Students who qualified for state began their journey in the Gold Coast conference. The Gold Coast conference is comprised of several schools such as Arcadia, Moorpark, Westlake and Valencia. OPHS FBLA students then competed in their assigned topics. Students who placed in the top six moved on to state.

State competition works similarly to sectionals. Students prepare their topics ahead of time and are judged on a series of criteria. Students then wait until the award ceremony to see how they did in their topics.

Students must prepare ahead of time for both state and sectionals because of the high-level competition.

“The board and I prepared the students with resources like practice tests, Quizlets, and study guides,” FBLA secretary Grace Ma wrote.

Students also prepared in their own ways rather than only using the resources given to them from the board.

“To prepare for state, I read through a textbook, took practice tests, and did research online,” sophomore Nik Thalanki wrote.

It was announced at the award ceremony, that seven OPHS FBLA students placed and four of those students also qualified to move forward to nationals. Freshmen Prinaka Drona and Krisha Thakur ranked third in their topic which was Broadcast Journalism, Thalanki placed second in his topic of Introduction to Information Technology and senior Vaishnavi Tipireddy qualified with fourth place in the Future Business Leader competition.

Officers noticed some changes in the students in the weeks leading up to state.

“Each student was more driven to do well especially because state is a more exclusive level,” Ma wrote.

Nationals take place in Maryland at the end of June and beginning of July; Thalanki, Drona and Thakur are all beginning to prepare now. Tipireddy has decided not to proceed to nationals claiming that the best part of FBLA is having your team with you and nationals is not a full team trip.

“We really haven’t gotten that far [in preparing for nationals] yet, but we are going to think of new creative, innovative ideas,” Drona said. “Since we used velcro [and poster board] presentations in state we are going to try and step up from that and we are going to edit our script to something a lot more believable and realistic.”

Thalanki, Drona and Thakur agree that preparation and confidence are vital in order to do well in conferences.

“My advice to future students that will go to state is to start studying, ahead of time,” Thalanki wrote. “Starting the night before might work for sectionals, but it will not work at state, as the competition is greater. And also, have confidence in yourself to win.”