Two business professionals of America

Israel Rosas, Staff Writer

Seniors Tej Seth and Yash Kumar were two pioneers when it comes to being part of the school business club, BPA (Business Professionals of America). Since their freshmen year, they have always been participating in the News Broadcast Team competition. They went to the National competition to compete in that field, at the BPA National Conference Leadership in California on Friday, May 3, Saturday, May 4 and Sunday, May 5, placing 3rd place.

At beginning, they made a three-minute news broadcast for the regional competition, that led them to step up and move on to the next competitions.

“First we had to place at regionals and we did that in January. We placed 1st  in our region,” senior Yash Kumar said. “Then at states in March we also placed 1st. That qualified us to move on to the national level.”

Their team competed against 11 teams. They had to race against time to complete their final task, a one-minute news broadcast about a topic assigned to them.

“We were 1 of 12 teams to make it to nationals, so in finals we had three hours to make a one- minute news broadcast about a topic that they gave us,” senior Tej Seth said. “And so we were able to finish 3rd in that event, we went to Anaheim California and it’s very sunny.”

They had to devise a way to complete their one-minute broadcast video, having only two hours.

“The hardest challenge we had to face was finding a good topic to do our final broadcast on,” Kumar said. “Because they only gave us three hours and for the first hour we thought we could do our broadcast about whatever, and then when we realized they actually gave us a topic to do about BPA behind the scenes. We had to scramble and adapt so that was kind of challenging.”  

Seth’s favorite part of the trip was when they  went to Santa Monica Pier to play on the beach.

“I think the best thing that happened was that we went to Santa Monica Pier for a day,” Seth said. “And just being in the city like that and seeing the fair, and going on the roller coaster, and playing volleyball on the beach made it a special day.”

Throughout the past four  years, they had disputes among the team members about the creation of the videos, but they learned how to deal with it.

“We’ve done it for the last four years as a team and we really learned how to work together as a team,” Seth said. “And when we do have disputes and get mad at each other, we had to learn how to be mature about it and set all those disputes [aside].”

They both think being in BPA and working with people as a team has helped them to prepare them for the future. And now they say goodbye to RHS with an award they won.

“It was good to know that we could find some balance and get organized enough to actually film a real broadcast,” Kumar said, “ I think it’s great because it really sets you off for a future if you working in a business setting, how to deal with people.”