Future Business Leaders of America: Benefits + Connections to CS & Business for High Schoolers
Future Business Leaders of America, or FBLA, is a nonprofit organization that aims to join business and education. Future Business Leaders of America has almost 250,000 students globally, and almost 15,000 chapters in the US, its territories, and Europe.
FBLA is considered one of the premier business organizations in the world, and they provide opportunities to students at the middle school, high school, and collegiate levels, as well as adults in business careers. In this blog post, we will be focusing on how Future Business Leaders of America works, what the benefits are of joining it (specifically for high schoolers), and how you can use computer science skills in FBLA as well.
What is Future Business Leaders of America and what do they do?
Future Business Leaders of America aims to help students who are interested in a career in business. Their mission is to specifically help students with leadership and career development skills, so that they can be greatly prepared for professions in business. Future Business Leaders of America hosts a multitude of regional and state-wide competitions, where students can compete to implement their business knowledge and skills that they gain from being a part of FBLA.
The exciting thing about Future Business Leaders of America competitive events is that the events cover a very broad spectrum of subjects. So, if your interests lie in a cross between business and some other subjects, like programming, graphic design, or even healthcare, FBLA events provide a great way to implement the intersection of these topics. To check out the wide variety of competition topics that Future Business Leaders of America provides - this is for high school students, check out this link to peruse the competitive events available at FBLA competitions.
What are the benefits of joining Future Business Leaders of America as a high schooler?
There are so many benefits to joining Future Business Leaders of America, especially as a high school student, and we will discuss some here.
The overarching benefit of joining Future Business Leaders of America at any age level, is the opportunity to learn the skills, experience, and knowledge that are imperative to joining a career in business. With the different competitions and interactions with experts that you get to have as a member of FBLA, you can learn a lot about what it takes to work in business and what you need to know.
Another big benefit of being a part of Future Business Leaders of America is that you can build confidence and get to interact with many other people who share your interests. Being around people who are also very interested in business can be a big advantage, and you will end up learning a lot of new things.
Lastly, a benefit that will appeal to most high school students looking for extracurricular or special opportunities is that having something like Future Business Leaders of America under your belt when you are applying for colleges is very appealing to admissions officers. Participating in FBLA competitions is especially beneficial, because doing well in these competitions means you can earn awards and even scholarships, which are very valuable; in fact, FBLA provides many private scholarships to many American universities and colleges, as well as many grants. In all, however, Future Business Leaders of America can help you greatly when applying for colleges.
Where can I join Future Business Leaders of America, and where is the nearest one?
As was mentioned earlier, Future Business Leaders of America has over 15,000 chapters across the U.S., so it is more than likely that your school will have an FBLA club or offer the opportunity to join your local FBLA chapter. You should talk to an FBLA adviser at your school if there is one, and if not, this is a great site for resources concerning how to become a member of your local or any chapter of Future Business of America.
Joining Future Business Leaders of America will often entail a small fee that covers the fees of joining competitions at the district and region levels, as well as possibly some merchandise such as a t-shirt. If you want to join your local chapter, I would be ready to pay some kind of fee, and contact the leader of the chapter if you are unable to do so. To find fee amounts for your area, check out this link to find out how much you will have to pay for membership.
How can Future Business Leaders of America help refine your computer science skills?
Future Business Leaders of America is mostly known for preparing students for business careers, but not many people know that FBLA can open up opportunities in a lot more topics, specifically computer science. In fact, almost a quarter of all of the competition events listed in the link that was provided in the “What is Future Business Leaders of America” section of this blog post are related to computer science and/or graphic design.
Because of this, FBLA can also provide opportunities to students to be able to implement their computer science skills in a business-oriented environment. In addition, meeting like-minded people at FBLA events and meetings who are also interested in a CS and business intersection can be an incredibly beneficial experience, as you can learn about what other people have done in a CS capacity.
You might get inspired to tackle your own project that addresses a topic concerning CS and business. In this case, there are several fantastic programs out there, one of which being the Inspirit AI 1:1 Mentorship program, that can guide you through the process of designing your ideal project. With the intersection of opportunities like Future Business Leaders of America, which helps you gain crucial business skills, and great programs like Inspirit AI, you can create an amazing project of your own combining these topics, or just overall increase your knowledge and understanding of these topics.
In conclusion, Future Business Leaders of America provides so many cool opportunities for high school students that want to learn more about business, get ahead in college and in their career, and want to learn about how to implement business tactics in other subjects. Using the upper hand that this provides you along with integrating programs like Inspirit AI into your repertoire will prove to be beneficial in countless ways, especially if you go on to work in the CS + Business field as a career. FBLA is readily available to students all over America and Europe, and I highly recommend you seize the opportunity while you can!
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
