Phi Beta Lamba (PBL), is a student leadership and business organization at DMACC which helps prepare students for their future careers. Phi Beta Lamba is a national group, with chapters at both two-year colleges and four-year colleges.
Students from the chapters compete in many events, such as: Job Interview, Public Speaking, Network Concepts, Personal Finance, among many other things. Recently, a group of students from DMACC competed at the State Leadership Conference, which includes all the PBL chapters in Iowa. Each student could participate in up to three events, which they choose from a list of approximately 70 events. They compete by taking multiple choice tests, doing roleplay, or doing presentations depending on their event. The top two people in each event statewide then qualify to compete at the National Leadership Conference, which is later this year.
At the National Leadership conference, students not only compete in their events, but they also attend workshops and network with business owners in order to develop connections to help them later in their careers.
Several students from DMACC Boone Campus qualified to participate in the National Leadership Conference, and several others from different DMACC campuses did as well. Eight of these Boone Campus students who qualified will be competing at the National conference this summer.
According to Chris Moon, PBL is an organization that will help any student, regardless of their program of study as it teaches skills that are important in any job. It is also easy to join, just attend one of their meetings on Tuesdays from 1:15-2:00 this semester. There are no GPA requirements to join PBL, so it is open to any student who is willing to learn. When asked who should join Phi Beta Lamba and who it can help, Moon says:
“It really benefits anyone, in any major, in any field, who wants to rise to the top.”
Moon recommends that any student consider joining, as the skills in leadership and business that are learned will prove to be helpful later in life, regardless of what career a student intends to pursue.