Club Feature- FBLA

Northwest Students interested in business are invited to Mrs. St. John’s room on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month to strengthen their roots in business knowledge and their community through FBLA.

FBLA is a community at Northwest that is focused on helping students build knowledge and connections through business as a national program. The organization has three different pillars to guide students through the world of business.

“We have three pillars in FBLA … education, service and progress,” said Mrs. St. John, the FBLA Advisor for the Northwest Chapter.

The three pillars of FBLA help students better understand themselves and their community because of the services and programs members will go through. Members will get to do several service projects, including projects that help students gain Silver Cord hours. Members also get to listen to guest speakers which will help them build future connections in the community of business on a state level and possibly on a national level.

“FBLA is an organization that really brings people together and lets them learn more than they originally expect in a sense of leadership and networking,” said Northwest senior Meredith Menning, the president of the Northwest FBLA Chapter.

In FBLA, there are various conferences for students to showcase their skills within the business field. These competitions can vary from a 100-question quiz to presenting various pieces of business, such as a marketing plan.

“I’ve done Entrepreneurship, I’ve done UX Design, business management, business basics… and agricultural business,” said Northwest senior Kejli Bektic, a marketing board member of the Northwest Chapter for FBLA.

There are three levels of competition – district, state, and national level competitions. In districts, anybody can qualify at Northwest to compete, while to qualify for the state competition students have to place top four across the entire district zone. To qualify for national competitions, members have to place a high ranking in the state competition.

Bektic further explained, “If you get top four at state, you can go to nationals … which is the whole country, but then there are students from out of the country, like last year there was a student from China and there was someone from Puerto Rico.”

FBLA this year is traveling to Orlando, Florida for Nationals. Students who qualify get to go to workshops, listen to other qualifying competitors, stay in a hotel with friends and get to go to fun events in the area. Nationals for FBLA is a great way for students to see how to improve their business skills and make meaningful connections with students with similar interests across the nation.

FBLA is an overall great way to build relationships with different people in the business world, whether it be state-wide or throughout the United States of America, which makes it an amazing extracurricular to add to a schedule, especially with only two meetings a month.