Description: I competed with 2 of my classmates in the PA FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) Web Design competition at the State Leadership Conference. My team placed 1st, which means we’ll be competing at the National level in the summer in Florida. This blog describes my experience there!
Introduction
During the week of April eight through April tenth, I had the opportunity of competing in Web Design at the state level (Pennsylvania) for FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America). My team and I placed 1st in the state of Pennsylvania which means we’ll be representing Pennsylvania in the National conference this summer in Florida. In addition, this is the first year my school allowed FBLA competitors to compete since it was only brought to our school last year. This makes us the first team in our school to make the national competition for FBLA!
Getting to this moment involved months of preparation which involved my team and I creating a site to match the prompt given to us by FBLA. The rubric also required us to present this site, so we created a script and presentation along with the site. This opportunity gave us the chance to display our web design skills, while also helping us learn and grow individually, as a team, and with the help of our instructor and the comments given to us from the judges. Throughout this process we learned about innovative design techniques, along with researching things we were unfamiliar with such as website metrics.
What is FBLA
Again, FBLA stands for Future Business Leaders of America. It is a student organization meant to prepare students for business related careers, technical careers and more. It is open to middle school, high school, and college students to compete at their own levels (middle school level, high school level, and collegiate levels).
According to the official FBLA site, “FBLA inspires and prepares students to become community-minded business leaders in a global society through relevant career preparation and leadership experiences.” It expresses this cause in many ways, such as the dress code. During my competition and entire stay at the state conference, I had to wear my suit almost the entire time. They’re very strict when it comes to this attire, adding to the fact that it is a business-oriented organization.
Connection to Web Development & Design
FBLA has many diverse types of competitions: competitive events, chapter events, objective tests, presentation events, production events, role play events, 9th-10th grade specific events, along with many leadership workshops for students to attend at conferences. My specific event was a competitive event, Web design. There are other competitive events within my field as well such as Website Coding (which 2 seniors from my Web Development program competed in and placed at the state level!) and Visual Design, UX Design, and more. There are competitions more focused on the IT side of computer science too, like network design.
Experience
I’ve been in FBLA since last year (sophomore year), but I was barely involved as I was competing in Web Development for SkillsUSA and after making the state competition that unexpectedly became my focus club. This year, my teacher became an advisor for FBLA and ended up bringing these programs to our class’s attention. One of my teammates was looking to choose teammates for Web Design, and I overheard my teacher recommending me. So, my now teammate asked me, and I said yes because why not. I was the final member added to our team of three. After that, we started creating the site and worked together starting in 2023 towards our first goal of qualifying for the state competition. After placing, we got to spend three days in 2024 (earlier this month Apr 8-10) at the Hershey lodge. FBLA gave us so much freedom, the only mandatory things we really had to do was compete and visit the ceremonies. We had the opportunity to sit in other competitions, which were cool, and visit workshops, some of which were college related.
The best day for me personally, and probably my team along with our school members who came, was the last day at the award ceremony. Our competition was around the 2nd to last event to be announced, and the build up to that moment was nerve-recking. We were all excited to get called, and slightly upset that it was taking so long. But I think it taking this long only added to our experience in the end after taking first. It was a great moment, we all were excited, and it felt great to see everyone happy for us. The videos recorded they recorded were funny too because I got to hear everyone extremely excited for us. At the time, we were the only ones to make it to the national competition, so they were counting on us, and we did it.
Future Endeavors
So, what’s next now that we placed at states. Well, of course, THE NATIONAL COMPETITION!!! Hopefully, we place and open even more opportunities. Just competing alone has already opened us up to new networking opportunities and adding a new, beneficial, and impactful addition to our resumes. I hope to network and find others within our field that’ll help me grow in this career I want to pursue. When the competitions are over and I’m able to post the link, our site will be here for everyone to see!