A Delaware Area Career Center student claimed first place in a national Business Professionals of America competition recently, a first for the career center.
Chase Dauphin, a recent graduate of the DACC and Worthingon Kilbourne High School, became the first student in the school’s history to claim first place in the national division of the BPA competition in the category of Individual Multimedia Production.
The school reported it’s a goal instructors have been working towards for 15 years.
For the competition, entrants were provided a prompt about comparing and contrasting in-person versus online learning.
“I know that everyone feels differently about learning at home versus being in school,” Dauphin explained. “I tried to leave my own feelings out of it and take an objective look at how students are impacted by both learning styles.”
In his one-minute and nine-second video, Dauphin portrays a student learning at home, experiencing the isolation and stress of not being in the classroom. The video shifts to a classroom setting where students are masked and socially distant.
“You get to see those teachers that you once took for granted and now want to see, ” Dauphin says in the video’s voiceover.
Dauphin’s video was awarded first place at the national competition. Dauphin said he’s honored by the award.
“It feels really good to have won, but I only let it sink for about a minute before I focused back in on my other projects and my business,” he said.
Dauphin’s digital design instructor, Josh Gallagan, said he’s proud of Dauphin’s first-place showing in the competition.
“We have students place in the top 10 at nationals every year, but we’ve been working toward a national championship for a long time,” Gallagan said. “Chase really took this project and owned it. I’m beyond proud of him.”
Dauphin runs Dauph Media, a media and production company, and he plans to continue expanding his business across the country now that he has graduated. His advice to future students is to follow your heart.
“Do whatever it is that makes you happy,” he said.
Additionally, several other students at the DACC placed in the BPA competition: Adrian Self placed seventh in the Linux OS competition; Daniel Dawit placed fifth in the Java Programming competition; Jade Stephens was a national finalist in the Desktop Publishing competition; Ashlee Bennett placed in the top 20 in Computer Modeling; and Matt Burke earned a top-20 finish in Graphic Design Promotion.
Teams from the DACC also completed and took top honors. Teams placing in the top 10 included the team of Lucas Martinez, Josh Nagel, Samantha Sellers and Joe Schaffranek (fifth in the Video Production competition); Benji Wachtman, John Fashian, Kai Mays and Garett Markel (fifth in the Virtual Multimedia Promotion Team competition); Emma Hutchings, JJ Zink, Jeff Arseneau and Caroline Iversen (top-10 finish in the Broadcast News Production competition).
Three teams in the App Development program at the DACC placed in the top 10 in the Software Engineering competition. Second place went to the team of Nick Dible, Reece Gaddie, Brayden Schnell and Owen Burdo, while the team of Cameron Cash, Jeremy Fellows, Dakota Hughes and Zachary Ward placed third. The team of Samuel Heiligmann, Zachary Millisor and Erin Stacey placed 10th.
