DECA is a merit centered club that provides its members skills crucial to the business field, whilst helping students stand out to colleges. The focus of DECA, a student group focused on career technology, is business. The club has a strong emphasis on marketing, finance, general business, and hospitality/tourism.
“DECA is a career technology student organization that is primarily about business. There are four main areas that we focus on, regular business, finance, marketing, and hospitality/tourism. Entrepreneurship is also available. We do community service and competition based on the areas mentioned. We compete locally, and if we win at a district level we go to state. This year state will be in Houston.”, Heidi Aragon said.
DECA has had a successful year, given 23 students in the club have qualified for the upcoming state competition in Houston.
Something interesting about DECA is that it is not exclusive. Students are encouraged to join and there are many benefits to membership.
“It’s a fun club, and plenty of universities love DECA on your resume. If you’re interested, there are team activities and individual. We would love anybody that wants to participate.”, Aragon said.
Members of the club are not required to participate in competition, however if they chose to, there are a variety of areas to compete in. Clare Kim, a DECA member, shared her experience participating in the regional competition.
“My event was principles of business management and administration. It’s a first-year event all about emotional intelligence and how you handle problems in the service sector or monitoring other employees. In my event I had to talk to a co-worker about how we would move our companies to mobile operations.”, Kim said.
Participating in DECA helps students develop skills applicable in the workplace. Geoffrey Sias, another member, described the impact the club has on him.
“It’s really good at helping me talk to people, come up with ideas, and present them in a way that someone can understand and follow.”, Sias said.
Sias and Kim encourage students who may be interested but skeptical to join DECA, expressing competing is fun, and although the process can be stressful, it’s worth the effort and not as bad as one might imagine.
“It went pretty well, we qualified for state, on our scoring guide we got 99 out of 100 which is pretty good, but in general they grade significantly easier at the regional level than at the state level so we’re definitely going to have to work on it.”, Sias said.
DECA is a platform for students to sharpen their business skills and make connections in their field. The club’s sponsor Aragon encourages any students interested to join their community.
DECA also provides its members the ability to develop skills useful in the business field. The journey may be challenging, but the rewards are undeniably worth the effort for anyone considering joining DECA, especially those aspiring to practice business.
