The Future Business Leaders of America-Collegiate State Leadership Conference, held April 14 and 15 in Pasadena, Texas, was a chance for students from the Naveen Jindal School of Management to put their talents to the test.
For the second year in a row, every Jindal School competitor made it to the national competition, which will take place in Atlanta in June. JSOM students had 12 first-place finishes, six second-place finishes and two third-place finishes.
The event allows students to display their knowledge in standout categories, including those that focus on management and economics. While presentations were done during the event, a portion of the competition is in the objective area, which is where tests are taken at a time before the competition.
Sisters Daisy and Evelyn Villagrana, who finished second in the national competition in Chicago last year in the Hospitality Management category, will compete in two categories in the national competition in Atlanta this year. They had two first-place finishes at the state competition in the Hospitality Management and Emerging Business Issues categories.
“The Hospitality Management one was a case resort called Maui Hideaway,” said Daisy, a business administration senior. “With numbers down from Covid, the challenge was to think about activities that could be implemented for the resort to drive their revenue…We had the case study, the back story and more. We had to come up with the solutions and come up with a presentation.”
For the Emerging Issues category, also related to the pandemic, students dealt with an individual’s mental health related to the workplace, said Daisy, who serves as Treasurer for the UT Dallas chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America-Collegiate.
“We had to do a lot of research to see which companies were addressing these issues and which ones weren’t and we talked about different things they could do to address these issues as well,” she said. The big difference for this category was they couldn’t have any notes or presentation slides. They had to rely solely on speaking.
Both categories had the competitors giving roughly a 15-minute presentation and participating in a five-minute Q&A with judges.
Evelyn appreciated being able to do the statewide competition in person this time.
“You were able to network and meet with other people in Texas,” said Evelyn, a marketing senior who is the recruitment chair for the UT Dallas FBLA chapter.
“Being in front of judges this way…also builds your leadership skills,” she said.
Finance junior Sid Sridharan also is returning to the national competition after a seventh-place finish in Chicago last year in Macroeconomics. This year, at the state competition, he had a first-place finish in Information Management and second place in Foundations of Accounting, participating in objective tests for both.
“Between the IT courses I’m taking and ones I’ve taken, it helped me…and taking Introductory to Financial Accounting at school prepared me,” said Sridharan, who serves as president of the UT Dallas FBLA chapter.
Finance junior Patricio Gonzalez Ramos, in his first year of competition, was thrilled to find himself with two first-place finishes in objective tests for Management Concepts and Sports Management and Marketing.
“It’s a big competition and it’s a lot of people competing,” he said. “When I found out I qualified for Nationals, I was really excited.”
Dr. Kathryn Lookadoo, an associate professor of Instruction in the Organizations, Strategy and International Management Area at the Jindal School, is ecstatic about UT Dallas’ success this year.
“It’s great practice,” she said. “There are even impromptu speaking opportunities in the competition, workshops for them to learn about professional development and a chance to network…Very proud of our students.”
Lookadoo said that the chapter is open to all UT Dallas students.
“Currently, all FBLA members are JSOM students, but we welcome students from other UTD schools to join us in next year’s competition,” she said. “We’ve had members from other schools in the past, just not this year.“
