Saratoga chapter reflects on success at FBLA states

Bright red, white and blue lights flashed across the Ontario Convention Center on April 16 as thousands of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) members filed in for the annual California FBLA State Leadership Conference (SLC) awards ceremony.

Among the huge crowd, seven Saratoga students wore hopeful smiles, cheering from the back of the auditorium. Los Gatos teacher and FBLA adviser Erol Ceran acted as a chaperone for the group of Saratoga students and one Los Gatos student.

At the end of the night, junior Lesley Huang took home third in Business Communications, senior Thomas Wang placed fifth in Healthcare Administration, freshman Victor Liu placed eighth in Introduction to Business Communications and sophomore Caitlyn Chen placed fourth in Mobile Application Development. Chen, Wang and Huang qualified to compete at the 2016 National Leadership Conference (NLC) in Atlanta this summer.

“After three years of participating in this event, I'm so ecstatic that I placed third because it means that all my hard work has finally paid off, and I finally get the opportunity to compete on the national stage,” Huang said.

In Huang, Liu and Wang’s events, competitors study for a multiple-choice test. Huang and Liu’s events, regarding business communication, test on proper sentence construction and formatting of oral and written communication in a typical workplace. But besides the multiple-choice tests, other events like Mobile Application Development include a formal presentation, where competitors present their research and projects to a panel of judges.

Even after taking an 8-hour bus ride down to Ontario on April 14, many of the Saratoga FBLA members studied through the night on Thursday to prepare for their early exams and presentations on Friday. Despite the “poor Wi-Fi” and “terrible service at the Radisson [Hotel],” Huang said the sleepless night doing practice tests on a messy hotel bed and missing her junior prom was a small price to pay for her NLC qualification.

Almost more excited than the NLC qualifiers was president of Saratoga FBLA chapter senior Ingrid Zhou, who was thrilled with how her club members did. Zhou said that in the past, Saratoga has never had more than a few people place in states.

“I'm extremely proud of how far this club has come, considering we are such a small chapter and were up against chapters of about 50-60 members,” Zhou said. “I couldn’t be happier ending my term as president of FBLA with this and I look forward to watching the club expand in the years to come.”