Preparation, teamwork and focus added up to a win this past weekend for four Assiniboine business students. The team placed third at the 16th annual Business and Accounting Students Case Competition and Conference (BASC) in Winnipeg.

Second-year students Catherine Pawluk, Kelsey Rapp, Whitney Seib, and Ihor Verys represented Team Assiniboine.

“We got a chance to apply everything we’ve learned in the program,” said Seib. “For me especially, this was a great opportunity to apply that knowledge and to network with others in the field.”

Teams were separated into hotel rooms, given a case to problem solve and had two-and-a-half hours to prepare their solution in the form of a presentation. They then had 20 minutes to present their recommendations to a panel of judges comprised of both university faculty members and accounting professionals.

“As soon as we got the cases and started reading them over, I realized that we had seen that type of thing before. I felt like we had a good understanding of it from being here” said Pawluk.

Teams presented ‘blind’, meaning judges weren’t aware of what institutions students were representing.
There were two rounds of competition spanning the two days, with the winning teams announced at the gala evening wrapping up the conference on Saturday.

Students were accompanied by faculty coaches John Tataryn and Reagan Bromley, both Chartered Professional Accountants teaching in the college’s Business Administration program.

“They see what’s out there, they network and they meet people from other schools,” said Tataryn. “It gives them a chance to see just how big the world is and where the opportunities are.”
The BASC competition is part of a two-day conference held annually in Winnipeg by the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business Accounting Association.

Assiniboine was the only college to participate in this year’s case competition, sending two teams of students. The eight other teams were from Brandon University, University of Manitoba, University of Saskatchewan and Lakehead University. Lakehead University and the University of Manitoba placed first and second respectively.
In addition to bragging rights, students walked away with a $500 cash prize—admittedly, most of which went towards celebrating their win.

“Well, to be honest, we spent that on Saturday evening,” joked Seib.