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Photo by Elaine Huang

FBLA hosts meetings in the new space opening up the foldable wall between rooms I1 and I2.

Future Business Leaders of America, or FBLA, is an educational association for middle school and high school students to learn more about the free enterprise system. FBLA is one of the most popular clubs on campus, with 150 registered club members and 22 officers. 

With the finished construction of the iHub, most of the business, programming and engineering clubs and classes have been relocated to the new building. This is a huge change for the club because their classroom in the iHub has double the space than their previous classroom in the A building. In addition, the foldable wall design in the class has given FBLA a huge increase in meeting space. 

“The room change is certainly the biggest change I have experienced,” junior Raj Raghulan said. “It has definitely been a positive change, mostly with this new wall that they have implemented.”

The iHub not only provides FBLA with a new and larger classroom but they also now have an inspiration room available for club members to use. 

Sharing a building with other STEM classes has also given FBLA the opportunity to recruit more members whom they wouldn’t have been able to reach before. 

“We got a lot of students coming from engineering and programming classes joining our club this year,” Raghulan said. “That’s great because we want to have as many new perspectives and experiences as possible.” 

The expansion has been a huge positive improvement to the club. With the increasing number of club members joining, the officer team is trying to provide equal opportunity for all members.

“We are trying to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to learn in this space, instead of only focusing on competitions and placing,” junior and VP of writing competitions Sruthi Rayaprolu said. 

FBLA President and senior Zibaa Adil encourages any student to join, even if they lack past experiences in business. However, the number of competition slots can be a limiting factor.

“There are about 70 competitions now — which sounds like a lot — but we are not always able to accommodate people to their first choice,” Adil said. “There’s always a heavy interest in certain competitions from our members in categories, such as speaking, tech and writing.” 

To students considering joining FBLA, Adil said she strongly encourages them to give FBLA a try. 

“I just love the energy in FBLA — everyone’s super charismatic and passionate,” Adil said. “I really hope students will be able to find a community in FBLA.”