The Business Professionals of America Club has received top awards within their first year of having been created. The club recently competed with about 100 other students statewide at regionals and received first place for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, as well as third place for Small Business Management and Multimedia Video Production.

Business Professionals of America Club aims to help students learn about potential career opportunities in business while helping them foster critical thinking skills. This club has only been up and running for roughly a year, yet they have already been successful at regionals and are heading to state in early March. The club attends competitions, has enriched conversations on the world of business, hosts guest speakers and covers all areas of business no matter what field someone might be interested in.

BPA Advisor Philip Schut runs the weekly meetings and holds discussions based on whatever the “hot-topic” of that week is. They are always working on something different, like competition preparation, fundraising logistics, learning from guest speakers, team building and more. No matter what they do, they are always learning valuable information that they can put to good use.

“Students have so many unique and exciting learning opportunities within the club because we have revived a chapter of BPA that has laid dormant for several years, so a lot of the discussion in the meeting is centered around building this club almost on the fly, much like an entrepreneur would,” Schut said.

As much as the club is fun, it has its challenges. The members are taught valuable information that they will hold with them for years to come. Though to gain those experiences they must first work to achieve their success, which often requires a certain workload.

“It’s definitely teaching me lessons with managing time. I’ve had to pull a few all nighters because of this thing so far, and it’s just a good look inside what the actual business world looks like,” junior Henry Still said, who took first place in Entrepreneurship and Small Business management.

The students in the club take time to prepare for most possibilities at the competitions and in doing so they receive beneficial challenges and knowledge that they can use to their advantage for current or future tasks. The club is not only to help students understand the business world, but helps them prepare for their future and helps them understand how to use these skills in the real world.

“I think going into a business college not knowing anything about it is not gonna be good at all, you gotta know about what goes into a business and definitely I think doing this and getting exposure to that is helping,” junior Andrew Langenberger said on how in the future he could use these skills learned from the club.

The Business Professionals of America Club is one for the benefit of the students. Students are able to join at their leisure, experience simulated conferences of real world expectations and fully understand how to manage money and income for small businesses, self management, or other realistic financial possibilities. The members are not only learning, but bonding and having fun with one another, all while using their newly attained skills to apply and prepare for adulthood.