DECA State Competition Field Trip

DECA shares their time at the state competition, and how the competitive environment was.
​by Cameron Parker

Learning from mistakes
Last week our marketing pathway took a trip to Atlanta to compete in the state DECA competition.  Victoria Raphael, Bryce Mendez, Dillon Newton, and Emori Maolud-Lewis
have prepared and learned a lot during their trip. Victoria Raphael (12th) shares, “Oh my goodness, I've gained a better sense of talking to people professionally and just more respectfully in general. In a sense you become more in tune with it.” It's amazing to see students find their specialty and what they really love.

Walk-through
The DECA members were able to go out to eat at multiple different restaurants and have team bonding time with each other. Victoria Raphael (president of DECA for WGHS) walked us through the start of the trip saying “Friday we checked into the hotel and there was an opening session which basically tells you what your going to do the next day and how things are going to operate and Friday you do the roleplay all day.” 

Competing
This time around at the DECA state competition there were about 22,000 students. This is a significant increase from previous years, leading to a more competitive and intense environment for our competitors. Mrs. Emily Smith and the DECA team have been studying and working hard for the past months in preparation for this competition, yet the competition was too fierce. Mrs. Smith says “So it's very competitive, and it's with schools that are career academy schools, charter schools, and even private schools.” Being able to go up against thousands of competitors is amazing for DECA because they get to learn and adapt to succeed each year, including in the future.

How you can compete
If you're interested in going next year, you can join DECA and learn ways to succeed in your business ventures. If you don't have the time for DECA, you could take the marketing pathway with Mrs. Smith and learn all about business and what it means to be an entrepreneur. Even if you don't want to learn all about business and become the next bill gates… you can still learn a lot of life skills that can help you throughout your life.

Next year
Though our DECA team did not make it to international they can learn a lot from their mistakes and how they worked this time. You could even win next time if you apply yourself. Even if your not interested in business you could compete in DECA for college applications and just general life skills like talking to people professionally, and working hard on something your passionate about. If you are interested go to the DECA homepage.

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