As someone interested in the economy and business before coming to SCIE, I have always heard of various famous business competitions, from the famous international business competition such as FBLA to SCIE’s own competition held by Business Practice Club
Looking at the “cool” pictures: the contestants are all wearing suits, using computers to collect information, and actively discussing business plans, which made me look forward to the business competition. Unfortunately, due to the epidemic’s impact, the school’s business competition was changed to be held online. Until November 2021, when I learned that I had passed the school selection and could participate in the national round of competition, I screamed with joy. After nearly three months of team preparation, our three-person international business team, Yawen, Mary, and I, all set off separately due to the pandemic and took planes from different cities to the competition venue—the Shanghai Xianggelila Hotel. We are finally going to join!
On the morning of the first day of the competition, my roommate Yawen and I got up at 6:00 to save time by having breakfast in the first batch. The sleepy bugs I was worried about were utterly driven away by the excitement and nervousness in my heart. The breakfast at Pudong ShanggeliLa hotel was abundant, with Western-style bread and Chinese-style freshly boiled noodle soup, but what surprised me was that some contestants were already seated in the restaurant at 6:30, which made me really admire everyone’s hard work.
At the opening ceremony in the morning, more than 800 players gathered in the hall, each wearing a suit, with a laptop between their arms, walking with their heads held high, as if everyone was a business manager, gripping the success firmly in their hands. Accompanied by the exciting music, the names of different schools were displayed on the big screen. I couldn’t help being shocked by the scale of this competition. When I saw the logo of SCIE, I took out my mobile phone unconsciously to take pictures. The sense of belonging could not be stronger.
An accelerating heartbeat and curiosity about unknown challenges accompanied me to my first big game: a business presentation. In the corridor outside the auditorium, the contestants need to prepare a 7-minute speech based on a random international business topic within 20 minutes and then accept questions from the professional judges after the end. In order to save time, the three of us roughly divided the major sections that we were responsible for and then prepared separately. Strangely, in the first ten minutes, my excited heart didn’t seem to make my brain think faster. Instead, I felt like I was just holding a pen and writing for a few points and then froze. But by “coincidence”, the teammate’s thinking seemed to have fallen into a dead end, so I glanced at her hand card: Hey, isn’t it easy to say, this point can be noted in these ways. . . She also took a look at mine and found that there were more places where she could play. I suddenly thought: Then let’s quickly change the part in the charge, hurry up! The moment I got my teammate’s hand card, my mind opened up, and within five minutes, my card was full of points.
Time passed without our notice; as soon as 20 minutes arrived, three of us rushed out in a hurry because we needed to transfer from the waiting building to another building within three minutes. Although we were out of breath when we got to the lecture room, everyone was calm during the speech and “miraculously” explained every point logically and fluently. When my first group mate gave her speech, I briefly recalled the speaking skills I learned from school. Sure enough, as soon as I opened my mouth, the judges simultaneously held their heads up. Although we ate Shake Shack burgers to recover our energy, we missed the night view of Shanghai: we went back to the hotel to prepare for the most critical part on the second day: the 100-question multiple-choice test.
The written test was held in the auditorium. All the contestants in all groups would do it together with their teammates. I personally found that the national competition questions were more difficult than I thought, which made me flustered for a while. Thanks again to my teammates; we exchanged our opinions and deduced an answer everyone agreed with. After the exam, we rushed out of the exam room to eat an authentic local dish. The first was to relieve hunger, and the second aim was to start our expectations for the afternoon award ceremony.
Unfortunately, due to various reasons, the award ceremony did not give out the team awards due to the time limits, and I did not experience standing on the stage to receive the award. However, my teammates have achieved impressive results in their individual Open Event (composed of multiple written tests between the two major team exams, aiming to fill the time gap).
On the next day, when I woke up in the ‘morning’, I received a message from my teammate Yawen, saying that we won third place in the national, international business and second place (only the top two can enter the global competition) was only one point behind. All in all, this business competition is an unforgettable experience, whether it’s flying alone under the epidemic, or preparing for the contest with classmates in the hotel, or everyone encouraging each other: “No one is allowed to say’ sorry’ on the next day.”
This will undoubtedly be an unforgettable experience in my high school life.
- Article / Emily Ji
- Pictures / Yawen Mary Emily
