Four members of Diamond Bar High School’s Future Business Leaders of America club attended the FBLA National Leadership Conference in San Antonio, Texas.

       Incoming seniors Mark Tan, Michael Cheng and Jackson Lennon as well as incoming sophomore Allen Wang attended the June 29 to July 2 competition. 

  At the conference, Cheng and Lennon competed in the Global Business group event together. Tan participated in the Business Calculations event, and Wang participated in Introduction to Financial Math. Tan placed 9th in his event, while Cheng and Lennon made it to the Top 15.

To qualify for the national competition, all four FBLA members had to pass through the regional and state competitions.

“My teammate and I mainly focused on studying alone as it was inefficient to study a book in a group setting,” Lennon said. “On the other hand, we practiced for the presentation by utilizing case studies from business consulting services.”

 Cheng and Lennon’s test comprised of a written portion and an impromptu presentation portion, which, according to the students, covered an array of subjects such as global product shipment and international staffing policies.

“I’ve known my teammate for over six years,” Cheng said via Instagram. “This level of mutual understanding allowed us to be extremely efficient and cooperative.”

Tan and Wang studied for their events a bit differently. They both utilized previous tests and reviewed topics on the FBLA national guidelines.

“I prepared mostly by studying the competencies listed on the FBLA national guidelines one by one and reviewing all the older tests I could find online,” Tan said via Messenger.

Tan was tested on many competencies such as investments, depreciation and bank reconciliations. His test consisted of 100 objective questions on a computer and lasted for one hour.

“Business Calculations is perhaps one of the most competitive events for FBLA,” Tan said. “I would say the test is pretty rigorous, and time is most definitely a factor.”

As a rising sophomore, Wang said he was glad he was able to compete in nationals.

“It was really fun and cool to be able to make it to nationals, and even though I didn’t win, I think I gained a lot out of the experience,” Wang said via Instagram. “The competition itself was pretty easy, but I just missed some terminology, which probably caused me to not place.”

The DBHS students said they appreciated the number of students from different areas that they met there.

“For me, the competition wasn’t really the main focus,” Lennon said. “The main thing I enjoyed was conversing with students all over the country. The similarities that we shared were very surprising, considering that we lived in different environments.”

The conference also provided them with many networking opportunities.

“We got to meet people from different states and even countries, and it was an enlightening experience,” Cheng said.

Although the four students primarily went to Texas for the competition, they still had plenty of time to visit nearby attractions, including the Alamo and the San Antonio River Walk.