| Students
Find Their Perfect ‘Match' |
By Leslie Perales
Observer Staff Writer |
| Many students at South Lakes High School are highly anticipating
the week of Valentine's Day when they will receive the results
of their personalized Data Match, a program that connects
students based on personality traits they identified in a
questionnaire. This is the second time that South Lakes has
offered the program, which is organized as a fundraiser for
the Future Business Leaders of America student group. |
| Kirsten Hillgaard Lukas, who is a co-adviser for FBLA, said
Data Match is one of their programs that students get really
excited about because of its novelty. |
| "Other clubs do candy grams or singing grams, and this is
different and gets the club's name out there as well," she
said. |
| She said Data Match gives participants a chance to meet
people with similar personality traits that they might not
get to know otherwise. Data Match uses questionnaires that
students complete to figure out which students are most alike.
She said the South Lakes FBLA created their own questionnaire
for the program, and questions included topics such as a person's
favorite sport or class subject. |
| In addition to raising money for FBLA, the program also
gets other students interested in businesses classes at the
school, she said. While teachers do not know the exact science
behind Data Match—questionnaires are sent away to determine
results—using the program gives teachers the opportunity to
teach students about different business techniques. |
| For example, offering the program near Valentine's Day teaches
students about how timing is involved in marketing campaigns,
Lukas said. She said the program also lends itself to explaining
to students how databases work. |
| The FBLA offered the program a few years ago, and about
80 percent of the student body completed Data Match questionnaires.
Only about 20 percent of the students purchased their results
that year, but Lukas said she expects they will have a higher
turnout this year. |
| "We have 1,000 students who filled out the forms, so they
could purchase them," Lukas said. "There was a lot of interest
and curiosity about it all." |
| She said few students understood the program the first time
Data Match was used, but the FLBA did a better job marketing
the program and explaining how it works this year. |
| In addition to student matches, the program also connects
teachers and results include male and female matches. |
| "For teachers it's kind of hard to meet each other outside
of your department," Lukas said. "When I got my results, I
was able to meet four or five teachers outside of my department."
|
| The results of the matches are sold for $2 each, and that
money benefits the FBLA, which uses it to attend leadership
conferences where they are able to learn about things such
as managing their own companies, public speaking and business
etiquette, Lukas said. |
