You know back when i was in secondary school, i remember us thinking that our school was the best thing in the world. It didn't matter that we hardly followed any of the rules, wore ankle length socks, tucked out our uniforms, kept our hair long, or came late countless times. The list goes on. But give us an inter-school event be it sport, debating, or even an educational challenge, as long as it involved pitting ourselves as a school against another school, suddenly we became ferocious, passionate, die-hard supporters of the colours of our uniforms.
It's pretty unexplainable, but there's just something about competition that riles us. It didn't matter if we were from a neighbourhood school, or one of the top schools. All that matters was that we would be cheering and shouting louder than the other school's supporters.
I remember loving that kind of healthy rivalry and competition. Every time an event was coming around, there'd be a growing sense of excitement amongst everyone around the school, even during lessons, especially on the day of the event. I remember participating in a debating competition and being so excited to represent my school (i was from a neighbourhood school, mind you)!
Now this brings me to my point, about NYBC (no, it's not some cop show though it sounds the part). The National Youth Business Challenge is interesting in so many ways that i truly regret not having heard about this back in my days at secondary scool (NOT too long ago okay!). If you've ever felt there's a business-setter living deep inside you, someone who loves the challenge and pressure of dealing with everything a business has to offer, from running a business, to simply analysing trends, and even managing various levels of people and situations, then continue reading!
NYBC is an annual outreach programme organised by Ngee Ann Poly's School of Business & Accountancy, where hands-on learning (which is the only way to learn imo) is the major draw of this program. Experiential learning, with real life settings, dealing with macro & micro forces which come to play, is indeed, PLAY. (pardon the pun)
You'll learn various topics that include entrepreneurship, marketing, customer service, retail management, operations management, and human resource management. Which may sound like a whole lot of stuff that's too niche for you to settle on, but THAT"s exactly the point! (: You can give it a try in these settings, and you've nothing to lose, just all to gain as you can find out through these competition's process whether or not you like these kinds of fields, in terms of business. Of course, through this all, you also get to bond with your friends, and classmates, as it's a perfect setting for getting closer (:
If you want more information about the competition, you can check out the website at www.nybc2010.com
Here's two pictures of the teams that participated last year (note the smiles):
More information that you'd defitnitely need, like how many of your friends should form a team, how many teachers do you need going with you, and how where exactly is it held (hint: its a mega mall!) can be found over there on the website.
So i say give it a go, if you're reading this, you want excitement, adventure, you want to grow closer to your friends, and you want to learn something in the process, and who knows-one day maybe join the business industry, you can find all that out and more if you make the first move!
Don't be like me and regret that I didn't participated in more of these events when i was in secondary school! (: Your chance is NOW.