Throughout December, the East Business Professionals of America (BPA) has been gearing up for their regional competitions in January.

At regionals, students will compete against West Aurora, West Chicago, and Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in competitions relating to a wide variety of presentations and tests covering topics such as Network Design, Extemporaneous Speech, Business Law and Ethics, and Payroll Accounting, and many more.

Over the past month, students have been working on their presentations and receiving peer feedback. 

Daniela Nether, the club’s social media director and a member of the parliamentary procedures team, spoke about the feedback she received from her practice presentation.

“I think everyone in my group appreciated the feedback we were given. It will help us steer our presentation to make it better and prepare us for regionals,” Nether said. 

Elizabeth Boecker, who is competing in Graphic Design Promotion echoed Nether’s thoughts. 

“I knew I had a lot to work on going into my practice presentation but at least I got a baseline for what I should focus on and what I can use extra help on,” Boecker said.

The East BPA chapter has nearly 100 students competing at the regional competition that Oswego East is hosting this year. That is the second-highest number of students to compete after last year had a record number of students participating in the club. 

As members have been busy at work getting ready, the clubs’ advisors and executive board have been busy reviewing presentations and helping students study.

Mrs. Sajder-Adams, the head advisor of East BPA, commented on what she has seen so far as students are preparing.

“I think we have a lot of very talented teams this year and many individuals who have put a lot of effort already into their competitions and I am excited to see how they do at each level of competition,” Sajder-Adams said.

Krisha Majumdar, one of East BPA’s Competition Chairs, spoke about the trends she has noticed while reviewing the presentations.

“For the most part, the presentations look pretty strong but you can certainly tell that some groups are further along than others and more work needs to be done before January,” Majumdar said. 

The Illinois BPA Area 17 competition takes place on January 20, 2024. The top 5 in objective test events and the top 3 in judged events will move on to the State Competition.

Tyler Boecker, Jumana Alaridh, and Melissa Adams are staff writers for Oswego East’s online news magazine The Howl.