On Friday, November 1, 2019, Sarah Birchler, Chase Strong, Vance Schmidt, Jeff Kern, and I attended one of the breakout sessions and the 92nd National FFA Convention. The session that we attended was called the FFA Game of Life. The breakout session that we went to was called “The Game of Life”. The purpose of the whole thing was to try and get us thinking about what we are going to do after high school.  Along with that, I learned new social skills by sitting with people I didn’t know and I had to create conversation.  

While I was in the session, the leaders asked me to write on four sticky-notes answering different questions on each. They would also give us a topic and we would go and find someone that we didn’t know and ask them about that topic.  For example, one of the questions was, “What is the most important thing in your life?” Almost every person said their friends and/or family were the most important. Some of the topics that they said were really random and I didn’t have an answer for them, so I would just ask about what it is like where they are from. After that, I was given a paper plate and was asked to write a central goal in life in the middle of it.  Then, I had to draw a spiral circling from the center of the plate to the very outer edge. Once I completed that task, the leaders asked me questions about how I would like to go about my life and then I wrote my answers on the spiral I drew. However, when I wrote the answers, they were supposed to be written from the very outer edge and hopefully reach the center so that I could reach my goal. We had to think of what we are doing, whether that would be going to school, taking a gap year, or going straight into the workforce. They then gave use scenarios and we would have to decide what we were going to do to fix it. One would be to either buy a car or use the same car you already have to go back and forth to school. 

They also wanted to see what you want to do for a career and if it’s a correct fit for you. They also discuss how to apply leadership in your life in the future. Probably one of the most exciting parts of the entire session was when we had to actually play the game of Life the board game, but not exactly.  We also had to fill out a postcard to send to ourselves in the near future if we wished to do so. It also showed us how to set life goals for later on down the road.  

Before the session ended, we were able to come up with our own game of life and choose what path we wanted to create based on the two options given to us and at the end see if we reached our goal or not. Overall, this session taught us that it is okay to choose a different path compared to what others choose, as long as you become happy with the result you get and to not let others life choices or their path have an effect on the path you choose.

       Kailyn Moeller, National Convention Attendee, 

       Sarah Birchler, 2019-2020 Convention Attendee, 

       Vance Schmidt, 2019-2020 Sentinel, 

       Chase Strong, Convention Attendee