by: Ayla McDonald
At noon on Tuesday, April 23, the Parkland Business Club (PBC) hosted its last meeting of the Spring 2019 semester. At the Tuesday meeting Parkland Entrepreneurship Facilitator and Motivational Speaker Marc Chagnon spoke to students, encouraging them to discover their purposes in life and work towards them. Mark Kessler, Business and Management Advisor at Parkland College and Faculty Advisor for the PBC, told students that the club is looking forward to bigger plans for next semester.
According to the description of Parkland College Business Club at cuvolunteer.org, “We are a group of people motivated to educate and engage the community in business and provide the necessary tools for financial success!”
Stevenson Jean-Baptiste, a business major at Parkland, newly elected Parkland Student Government Senator, President of the International Student Association (ISA), and founder and President of PBC, is passionate about PBC and was excited to tell the Prospectus all about it. “I applied [to start the club] in December 2018 … and then started it in January,” Jean-Baptiste said. “I have always wanted to be a part of a business club because my major is business, so when I first came here, I wanted to…be part of a club besides the International Student Club. I wanted something more practical where I can learn stuff … from a business perspective. So that’s when I was like, ‘ok cool, they don’t have a business club right now, what if I start one?’” Jean-Baptiste also told the Prospectus that there was formerly a business club at Parkland that had ceased to exist prior to him becoming a student there. “Before I came here there used to be a business club, actually Mark used to be the advisor. And then for some reason it stopped…” Jean-Baptiste said. “[I started a new one] and it‘s been a great semester so far.”
This semester, the PBC has met on a monthly basis. Meetings have consisted of food for students and mentoring from different community leaders who are involved with business. “We invite a guest speaker like a business speaker to talk to us about how things work basically in business in general, you know, when it comes to having your own business or something, what are the steps to take. That’s exactly the main goal of PBC,” Jean-Baptiste said.
Jean-Baptiste told the Prospectus that student interest in the club has been high. “We have between fifteen and twenty students,” Jean-Baptiste said. “Most people are business students… some others are not necessarily business students, but they just want to know.” Jean-Baptiste credited the popularity of the PBC to the skills it teaches students. “At some point you’re going to be managing something in your life; you’re going to be leading something at some point,” Jean-Baptiste said. “You [need to] know how to deal with conflict, leadership skills and stuff. So [we] teach that too, so it’s not only for business people, but we have most people for business.” Jean-Baptiste said that two students who attended their first PBC meeting at the end of spring semester were very impressed with the club. “It was their first time and they kept telling me they loved it, they enjoyed it, which is good.”
“I want to take the club to a higher standard”
Jean-Baptiste has big plans for PBC for the Fall 2019 semester. “I want to take the club to a higher standard,” Jean-Baptiste said. “What I mean by that is, spring semester was the starting point. It‘s been successful; I’m happy with that. But for fall, I’m going to take it in a more business-like [direction]. The way you dress should be business-like, just like you would go to an interview or a special meeting; that’s the way I want it. We will have more speakers and we will also have…focus groups to discuss how to put what we learn from whatever speaker we have into practice.”
PBC plans to advertise for fall semester around the Parkland College campus, so look out for posters with club meeting dates when you return in the fall. For more information about Parkland Business Club visit the PBC Facebook page or contact club President Stevenson Jean-Baptiste by Parkland email.
