OCNews

Practice makes perfect, according to an Okanagan College Business professor, as her students swing for a spot at the top managing their simulated golf course.

Sheilagh Seaton teaches Management Principles, which introduces students to managing a business. At the end of the class, students are divided into groups and are then given the opportunity to practise the skills they’ve learned throughout the term by managing a simulation golf course.

But it’s not just any simulation golf course. Seaton said the project had a competitive aspect, ranking student groups’ golf courses and the way they manage their business on a provincial and national level using an internationally recognized simulation software by Praxar, which tracks participants’ real-time progress and ranks them. One of the groups from her class, Shooting Star, ranked high consistently throughout the simulation.

Shooting Star shot so high, they ranked as the second-best golf course managed by business students in the world, among over 800 teams this term from across the globe, including 49 others from OC.

“The team worked hard, so I expected them to do very well,” Seaton said. “With all their hard work, I suspected they had a good chance of placing well, but to be in the top of the World Rankings is a huge achievement.”

Their professor may have expected them to do well, but Shooting Star members had their doubts. Students Colby Holloway, Shaan Gill, Dallas Knoll and Zach Hansen, said they did a number of practice runs before it was show time.

“We’re fresh out of high school and we’re in a class with everyone ranging from our age to their 30s and 40s,” Colby Holloway said. “We expected the older students would do well, so it was definitely surprising to see how well we did, especially looking at the rest of that ranking list.”

Knoll explained that practising helped the group figure out how each member could contribute best.

“The biggest thing we wanted to work on was trying to find everybody’s skills and utilizing them to the best of our abilities to produce maximum results,” he said. “After doing some practice, we said one person can focus on this and another person can focus on that. I feel like that really helped us.”

Gill said another key piece they learned was communication.

“We learned how to effectively communicate with each of the members,” he said. “Finding time and letting each of our members know their responsibilities made us effective.”

The group said it was surreal to see their OC team rank higher than other big colleges and universities.

“There were a bunch of high-ranking colleges and universities, and then there’s us: the Penticton campus of Okanagan College,” Holloway said.

For all their hard work, however, the group said it was all thanks to Seaton’s patience and kindness as they learned the ropes.

“We received a lot of one-on-one attention. Any time we had a question, there was an immediate response,” Knoll said. Gill agreed that coming from a smaller school environment meant constant guidance is easier to access, which they said helped with the group’s success.

For her part, Seaton said it was wonderful to see her students be on par with students from other institutions.

“It was fun to see Shooting Star’s enthusiasm,” she said. “I am very proud of their effort, dedication and achievement.”