Jeux du Commerce uOttawa: School spirit, Competition, an Unforgettable Weekend

Going through school as a business student, there is always a need to network, or even diversify yourself to standout. I realized that one day I would actually need to leave school (Sadly) and get a REAL job. I looked at myself and that had gotten me thinking if I was doing enough to standout as a student. At this point I had just finished my second year at the University of Ottawa, and my extracurricular activities were pretty limited to playing sports. I decided to take a look at what the school had to offer for academic clubs. The first club I stumbled upon was the Jeux du Commerce case competition club. I figured "hey I'm not too bad at giving presentations why not give this one a shot!" So there I was, actually applying to something academic that I had to do on my free time! The process to join was to first submit an application with your credentials and why you should be selected to try out for the team. Luckily, I had just enough credentials to be selected for a tryout. The tryouts came shortly after, and it was the time to take the opportunity to show off my skills for a shot to be on the JDC marketing team. The tryout consisted of a 2 hour individual case crack where everyone had to prepare a presentation and give a 10 minute presentation solving a problem relating to the case. A month later, the team was selected and I was officially part of the JDC marketing team. The team consisted of 3 people that had to go through 4 months of preparation to try and capture the 1st place trophy. There was lots of preparation, but nothing could have prepared me for the incredible weekend that was to come.

                                Time to get to work

When the time of the event arrived, the team took a bus from Ottawa to Montreal to begin the weekend of competition and festivities. The bus ride was a mission considering there was 50 drinking kids, and we didn't have 1 bathroom on the bus... When I first touched down in Montreal, the first thing that came to mind is “Wow I need to find a washroom” Well, the other thought was that it was an insane atmosphere. I have never been a part of anything like it before. There was loud music, fun activities, and a ton of students ready to represent their school, and celebrate the beauty that is JDC. After a great night of festivities, everyone turned the dial, and it was time to get into competition mode. My team got unlucky and had to present at 10am, which meant that we had to begin preparing our presentation at 7am (Teams are allocated 3 hours to prepare). We were put into isolation early in the morning, and it was time to go to work. All of our hard work that we had done over the past 4 months was about to put itself to the test. We finished our presentation hoping that we did everything right, and that it was enough to win. 

                             An Unforgettable Weekend

The weekend was coming to a close, and we only had the awards gala to look forward to. A few hours later, we were sitting down as a team patiently waiting to find out if we earned a spot on the podium. They announced third place, then second place, and finally first place... Unfortunately, we didn’t end up earning a podium, and our weekend was over without taking home any hardware. Fortunately, other Telfer teams won their respective categories, so the school had something to celebrate that night. Going to a case competition and leaving empty handed is never ideal, but there can be some great lessons taught at these competitions. Being a part of the Telfer JDC team taught me so many great lessons about teamwork, meeting deadlines, and really helped me improve on my presentation skills. If I had to describe someone in one word what it’s like to be a part of the JDC team at the University of Ottawa, I could only see myself using the word “Unforgettable”

I suggest that if there is one thing you do with your time as a business student at a university, is to go and take the chance to be a part of a case competition team. All information can be located through: https://refaec.tv/