NLC 2008 - Atlanta!

It was inspiring to see all of PBL come together at Atlanta Georgia for this year's NLC!! The conference was a fun, motivating leadership and team building experience for everyone from CSUF.

To begin with, our hotel was amazing!! The Marriot Marquis in Atlanta had us at awe from the first time we stepped in. It had 50 floors and glass capsule elevators that gave you an entire view of the hotel as they went up and down.

The conference kicked off with the opening session- where everyone sat together with their state. Eventhough California was not one of the largest states present , we were deffinitly the loudest with our C HOUSE chant! Our key note speaker for the opening session was Dr. Rick Goodman- an entrepreneur who works with organizations to develop great leaders. His presentation was energetic and he left us with a motto- " If you can- you must, and if you must you will."

The 2nd and 3rd day of the conference consisted of networking, workshops, competitive events, and voting for national officers.
During the entire conference we were meeting different people from all around the US. We shared ideas to bring back to our chapter and made new friends.

The workshops were very interesting aswell. They varied from career workshops to leadership workhops and workshops that would help improve your local chapter. My favorite workshop was "Managing to Win" where we were taught about different management styles and how they affected team performance.

Voting for national officers was a fun experience. All of the running candidates- Including our own titan- Michelle Nakaji who ran and WON for Western region VP- set up campaign booths to attract and inform the delegated voters about why to vote for them.

The competitive events part of NLC was by far my most favorite part of the conference. I loved competing against the best of PBL! Although it was somewhat stressful to compete knowing that you are competing against alot of talented people- It is the best experience at NLC.

Our competitive event winners this year were:
1st Place ~ Macroeconomics - Robin Kim
2nd Place ~ Website Development - Richard Tsu
3rd Place ~ Microeconomics - Robin Kim
7thPlace ~ Project Management - Valerie Ucab
9th Place ~ Financial Services - Jackie Perez
10th Place ~ Hospitality Management - Richard Lee, Roman Valdez, Victor Wan

We also participated in the March of Dimes- march for babies mini walk around the hotel!!

When we had free time we went out and explored Atlanta and had dinner at the local restaurants. We went to Coca- Cola world, and The CNN center. Some of us also got to attend the Atlanta Aquarium. We had a couple of hotel room hangouts aswell.
There is sooo much more to say about NLC - that this blog will go on forever. We had ALOT of fun!!!! and it was a GREAT experience for everyone. I cant wait for NLC 2009 in ANAHEIM!!! My goal is to have 100% CSUF PBL attendance there.

Jackie Perez

Perez.jacquelyn@gmail.com