Some of our students at HOSA’s State Leadership Conference.
The much-anticipated annual Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) competition has arrived once again. Encouraging students to pursue healthcare, this club provides an ample amount of opportunities aiming to teach students about healthcare. The HOSA State Leadership Conference (SLC) takes place every year, allowing students from all over Florida to meet up and showcase their knowledge, skills, and passion for medicine. The SLC allows students to demonstrate their abilities through written tests, oral presentations, or hands-on competitions. Allowing students to further develop their leadership skills, many workshops took place run by professionals providing valuable advice.
This year the annual competition took place at the Orlando Marriott World Center in Orlando. The event took place over 3 days, from April 3 to April 6. Numerous students from Seminole High School (SHS) competed, representing the school. This year the competition took place over prom leading to few seniors and juniors going to the competition.
At around 5pm, students were checked into their hotel rooms, giving them time to set up and relax. The second day was when the majority of competitions took place and the rest were finished on the third day. On the third day, most students had a free day taking the opportunity to visit the nearby water slides and pool. The trip concluded on Sunday morning with the awards ceremony.
Proving to be an extremely tough competition this year, very few teams from Seminole High School (SHS) placed this year and even fewer earned the right to advance to the International competition at Tennessee. Freshman , Maggie Sun, was one of the few teams to place in the top 3. “I was in a team with Luis and Chloe and we competed in the health education category,” Maggie explains “It was genuinely a great experience and I had a lot of fun with everyone! I loved getting to know new people like my roommates and other competitors. The competition itself was very tough and we had to compete against 40-50 other teams, as health education was a very popular category. I can’t wait for the International competition!”
Overall, while the competition was tough, and only a few teams emerged victorious and were able to advance to ILC, all participants gave their best effort with many of them placing fourth or fifth and gaining valuable knowledge for the next competition.