The Business Professionals of America (BPA) competition day is approaching quickly, and its members are eager to travel to the competition missing an entire day of school. The BPA is a group of about 20 students at BSM who choose from a wide variety of business-related competitions to compete in individually or in a group. The club had its first meeting in late November and the competition is in early February, giving plenty of time for preparation. The club is represented by Mr. Sabol, who has been the head of BPA at BSM for the past three years. The BPA club will compete on February 8 where students will compete against other schools with the goal of moving past the regional competition and go onto State.

Because of the club’s relaxed nature, students enjoy it because they can decide how much of their time they would like to give. “It’s not a huge time commitment and you can tailor it to what you want to be, while still being able to participate in things like sports. It’s an opportunity to compete and see where you are, have fun and meet different kids from other schools and get a unique experience in high school,” Sabol said.

Other schools choose to participate in a club similar to BPA, called DECA. “I chose to do BPA because our business classes here at Benilde aren’t as focused on marketing which DECA is…BPA gives you the opportunity to compete in a number of different things. I was drawn to the fact that it’s a little more comprehensive and wide-ranged,” Sabol said.

Every member of the BPA club is in the process of preparing their projects, speeches, marketing plans, and resumes. “Last year was really stressful. I’m working with my group to get last minute touches done on the projects for the different competitions,” senior and BPA member Taylor Grossman said.

Depending on the event, every student has to complete different tasks with different goals for themselves or their group. “The primary goal is competition, our competition is coming up in February and my goal is for us to be prepared and ready to do well in the regional competition,” Sabol said.  

As this is the BSM’s third year of competing in the regional event, the club continues to grow in numbers as well as knowledge of what it takes to be successful and move on to higher levels of competition. “One thing to improve from previous years is hopefully just being prepared and understanding what is required for all the different events,” Sabol said.

Depending on the competition, there’s a lot of different ways to prepare and compete in each business related topic. “Due to the number of different of competitions and events, there comes a lot of work and preparation that comes along with it. There’s a lot of different things. Each competition is different; some students do 95% of the work before the competition, and some you need to do things at the competition,” Sabol said.

BSM offers many of business classes that can relate to the specific events of the competition. “I have taken some business classes related to the event, such as Business Management, which has made it easier for me and my group,” Grossman said.

BPA is an overall great experience to be a part of. It gives students an opportunity to become a part of a club that they are interested in. It also brings a competitive aspect to it as everyone in the competition is fighting for a spot at the state competition. “BPA is a fun club to be a part of because you can apply a lot of the stuff you learn from the classes and there is a lot of freedom for it. It allows you to apply your capabilities to something different from a test,” Grossman said.