FBLA Competition

Yesterday’s FBLA – Future Business Leaders of America state competition went reasonably well. It was at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Irvine. I entered both Computer Concepts and Java Programming. Although the competition is at the state level, rather than at the section level, it was still very similar. When I competed in Computer Concepts and Technology Concepts at the section level, I won 1st place in Computer Concepts and 3rd in Technology Concepts. So with Computer Concepts I went on to the state level. The competition isn’t really much of a competition – it involves taking a multiple choice test and getting the highest score.

There were a couple differences with the test. At the section level, we weren’t allowed to write in the test although the test coversheet said we could. Also, they said that time would matter and could be used as a tiebreaker.

At the state level, they didn’t say anything about how the amount of time I took would affect my placement. I asked someone and they said it didn’t matter – it was based solely on how many correct answers we got (no penalty for wrong answers or guessing). What if there’s a tie?
The desks that we did the tests on were in poor condition, just like at the section level. They were rough, uneven and dirty. I’m not sure why they couldn’t get better desks.

The competitions were held in three rounds, and it was extremely crowded for the first round so if you missed it (which is very easy to do, and many people did), you’d have to wait for the second round an hour later. They were actually far behind schedule; about 30-45 minutes behind.
Anyway, I won’t know the results and whether I won or lost until the awards ceremony this evening. Some people stayed overnight (and are going to Disneyland today), but I didn’t. It’s still an option for me to drive to the awards ceremony, however, I probably won’t be going (it’s an hour to an hour and a half drive to the Irvine hotel). If I win anything, our FBLA chapter advisor Mr. Jacoby will pick it up for me (so they say). So I’ll find out on Monday.

Thinking back in time for a moment… at the beginning of the conference, they had a presentation with people who were running for various leadership positions in California FBLA. Then, they had a great speaker who is some famous talk show host on TV. I’ll make a new separate post about him later.