ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – On Friday, a young professionals competition brought high schoolers from across the U.P. to Bay College in Escanaba.
242 students representing 10 schools competed in the Business Professionals of America (BPA) Regional Competition.
“It’s a nationwide organization where you have three events—regionals, states, and nationals,” said Nick Garcia, President of the Escanaba High School BPA Chapter. “Here at regionals, we have 31 objective tests you can take and then we have 25 judged competitions.”
Individual competitors and groups filled hallways and study rooms, rehearsing and perfecting what they had prepared.
“You’re given a prompt and you work with that,” Garcia explained. “You make a slideshow or a presentation.”
While the entire competition is centered on professionalism, the competition categories students can choose from cover a range of career options.
“I’m doing interview skills and a broadcasting team,” said Reece Gibson, a sophomore from the Sault Area High School BPA chapter.
“We’re doing a presentation team,” said a fellow Sault Area High student.
Another added, “I’m doing business ethics and professionalism.”
“I just competed in a financial analyst team,” Garcia said. “We were given a prompt of a girl. She wanted to open a jewelry store and we had to advise her on how to start her business. We had to help her make that decision on what to do, the next steps, and all of that stuff.”
Garcia says preparing for the BPA competition has taught him valuable skills.
“I’ve learned how to stay professional, that’s the big thing,” he said. “You get dressed up in nice clothes, you meet people from other schools, you network.”
Gibson says he is looking forward to taking what he’s learned from the experience into the career he pursues after high school.
“I think it relates towards real life and the things I will see in the actual workforce,” he said.
Garcia says even if a high schooler has never experienced a competition like the BPA Regionals before, the things they will learn and do in Business Professionals of America are educational and beneficial for everyone.
“We do a lot of things around the community,” he said. “We raise money for a charity for childhood cancer and research. We raised just under a thousand dollars for it. It’s really nice. See if your school has a chapter and get involved in it.”
Students who earned top marks in the regional competition will move on to the state competition in March.
