Smith Undergrads Put on Strong Showing at Biz Quiz Competition

The Second Annual Nationwide Fisher National Biz Quiz Challenge took place at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business from October 25-27, 2007 and Smith was well represented. A group of Smith undergraduate students - senior Leslie Lin, and juniors Eric Liang and Ademola Sadik - traveled to Columbus for the competition and advanced to the semifinals, placing fourth overall out of 18 schools.

The event was co-sponsored by Nationwide Insurance and the Wall Street Journal. All questions for the competition were drawn from the front pages of the Journal from Sept. 4 - Oct. 20, 2007. This required participating students to have read and be familiar with every issue published during this time period.

The competition itself was conducted in a quiz-show format consisting of an individual round, featuring multiple choice questions from the "Personal" and "Weekend" sections of the Journal, and a team round, which included questions from all other Journal sections. In addition to the teams strong overall performance, Lin and Liang both walked away with awards for their individual performance.

The three students heard about the event from Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies Pat Cleveland and were selected to participate out of many other applicants within the business honors program. For me, I thought it would be interesting to meet people from other schools. Plus, the idea of competition certainly sounded fun, remarked Lin.

The Challenge was made especially difficult by the fact that the Journal did not hand out any sort of practice problems. However, the Smith team proved able to adapt quickly and ended up performing better as the competition went along. We came in not having much of an idea of what to expect and ended up performing extremely well, said Liang.

Overall, the students enjoyed both the competitive and social aspects of the Biz Quiz Challenge, and all viewed the trip to Columbus as a rewarding experience. Both Liang and Sadik indicated that they would be willing to compete again next year if the opportunity presented itself; even Lin, who is graduating in May, indicated that she would go back if it were possible. I really enjoyed having to read the Wall Street Journal thoroughly every day. Additionally, the event also provided a great opportunity to network, said Sadik.

▓ Pete Baird, MBA Candidate 2009, Smith Media Group