by Chloe Jordan | feature editor
Twenty DECA members will be competing in the state competition in Houston Feb. 24-26. DECA is a club that prepares students for careers in finance, marketing and other business related fields.
“It teaches a lot of students a sense of professionalism and soft skills and stuff you need later for whatever career you’re in,” junior Aman Maredia said.
Students have the opportunity to compete in two main categories – prepared events and role play events.
“One is like prepared events, where you prepare a presentation and then you go and present that to a judge. That judge is usually someone with a career in business so they know what they’re doing,” Maredia said. “And then you can have a role play event, where you go and you’re given a scenario on the spot and you have to come up with a solution, so those are the two main things.”
The event will occur Thursday morning through Saturday. Competition events occur Friday 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m..
“If you do well enough, you can qualify for ICDC, which is the International Career Development Conference, and that is going to be in some other city in another state this year,” Maredia said. “It’s basically just the higher level from district.”
DECA students that qualified for state will have the opportunity to advance their business skills and utilize them in a competitive environment.
“If you win there, it’s really a pretty big achievement, because there’s lots of people that compete from all over Texas,” Maredia said. “Winning at this level would mean a lot to people.”
According to Maredia, DECA students learn long-term life lessons like soft skills and professionalism.
“Short-term, if you’re not really looking to go into a business career pathway, it still teaches you a little bit of stuff about those fields, and that could be useful in the future,” Maredia said.
It isn’t all business for DECA – members also enjoy the benefits of feeling accomplished and going on fun trips outside of school.
“I think we’ve had a lot of success in the past and we try to make the club as fun as possible,” Maredia said. “The trips are very fun, going to different cities, competing, meeting new people, networking, and making new friends.”
