Decision-Making After FFA: What Contest Experience May Teach About Handling Ambiguity
The Long Game: How FFA Leadership Pays Off in Careers, College, and Life
Most real decisions are made without all the facts. FFA events and alumni accounts touch that reality in a few specific ways: a forum that forbids picking a side, contests where time runs out before certainty arrives and graduates who describe winding career paths. This article collects what the sources actually say about deciding under ambiguity, adds a one-page decision template and is explicit that no study shows former competitors decide better than others.
- Key takeaway: some FFA events require weighing evidence without declaring a winner, which is practice for ambiguity, though the sources do not measure decision quality.
- Framework: NACE’s critical thinking competency and Advance CTE’s Career Ready Practices.
An Event Built Around Not Choosing
The Agricultural Issues Forum is unusual. FFA’s 2025 report says teams of three to seven members research real-world agricultural topics and present both sides to an audience. The event superintendent says the students provide the facts of both sides and let stakeholders decide, and a Utah advisor says the event teaches reasoning skills because the team cannot come to a conclusion (source). Practicing fairness while uncertain is a direct rehearsal for decisions where the right answer is disputed.
What Alumni Say About Uncertain Paths
FFA’s January 2025 feature on past national officers includes advice that fits ambiguity. David Townsend says a career path will not be one straight line, with twists and turns and no single path you must take. Adrian Schunk says real-world experience is useful even when it shows what you do not want to do (source). Scott Stump, a former assistant secretary of education, advises members to say yes to opportunities such as extemporaneous speaking or expanding a project, because each moves you forward (source).
Gary Swan, the 1966–67 president, says FFA helped define deficiencies that could be strengthened (source). Treating weak spots as information, not verdicts, is a useful decision habit.
A One-Page Decision Template
| Step | Question |
|---|---|
| 1. Decision | What exactly am I choosing between? |
| 2. Facts | What do I know, and from whom? |
| 3. Unknowns | What would change my mind? |
| 4. Both sides | What is the strongest case for each option? |
| 5. Rule | How will I decide if facts stay incomplete? |
| 6. Review | When will I check whether this worked? |
The template is this site’s suggestion, adapted from the both-sides structure of the Ag Issues Forum. It is not an FFA tool. Step 4 is the forum habit; step 5 is what the forum does not require, because the event stops before a decision.
Questions Readers Ask
Does the forum teach decisions or analysis?
Analysis. The event stops at presenting both sides, so the decision step is yours to add.
Is it a problem if I change my mind?
The alumni above suggest paths shift. Changing your mind after new facts appear is the point of listing unknowns in step 3.
A Worked Example (Hypothetical)
Suppose a graduating member must choose between two summer jobs: a steady farm-supply position and a riskier internship with a startup. Using the template, the member writes the decision (which job), lists the facts (pay, hours, what each employer has promised in writing), names the unknowns (will the startup still exist in August?), argues the strongest case for each option, sets a rule (take the internship only if the offer is in writing and the startup can name a supervisor) and sets a review date after the first month.
Notice what the exercise does and does not do. It does not tell the member which job to take, any more than the Ag Issues Forum tells an audience which side to pick. It makes the reasoning visible and testable, which is the practical benefit of the forum’s both-sides habit. If the facts change, the member can return to step 3 and update the choice instead of defending an earlier answer. This example is invented for illustration and is not drawn from any FFA source.
Honest Limits
The sources describe event design and personal advice. They do not compare the decisions of former competitors with anyone else’s. Alumni quotes come from FFA publications that choose their own examples.
On this site, Gary Swan, David Townsend and Beau Williamson each have a bio built from public sources. Those bios do not claim FFA improved their decisions.
Sources
- National FFA Organization: FFA Members Find Their Voice in the Agricultural Issues Forum (2025)
- National FFA Organization: My Work After National Office (2025)
- National FFA Organization: On the Record: Scott Stump (2019)
- National FFA Organization: Past National FFA President Commits to Lifetime of Ag Advocacy (2026)
- NACE: What Is Career Readiness?
- Advance CTE: Career Ready Practices