On December 9th and 10th, students who are part of the Distributive Education Clubs of America, also known as DECA, completed a 100-question exam to demonstrate their understanding of business concepts and to participate in further competitions.
DECA is a nonprofit organization which prepares students for the business world and for careers in clusters such as marketing, hospitality, entrepreneurship, finance, and management. Those who score well on the initial exam are invited to participate in role-play competitions in which students are prompted with a business scenario relevant to their career cluster and have 10-30 minutes to prepare to present their solution to a judge, who then evaluates and grades their performance.
Julia Kim, a freshman at River Dell, decided to pursue the entrepreneurship career cluster because, “I love to like convince others, so I believe the entrepreneurship career cluster was a great choice because I have the qualities necessary.”
On top of this, the club participates in food drives, local charity events, and community awareness campaigns to give back to the community and provide real-world experience for the members.
“DECA is an engaging club where everyone can help others, and I think it’s very good for communities,” explained Kim.
The purpose of the DECA test is for students to demonstrate their understanding about business concepts and scenarios and to rank them for competition status.
Mrs. Lenihan, the faculty advisor, explained, “The test is really important because, for districts, it’s 50% of your score, and then if you go to states then it’s 40% of the score, and then for International Career Development Center, ICDC, it’s 30%, so the test is a big difference.”
Students will soon receive their scores, and they will then continue to the competitive events. The first competition will take place at Ramapo College, the state competition will take place in Atlantic City, and ICDC will take place in Orlando, Florida. Only the winners of the previous events can progress.
When asked for some memorable events, Mrs. Lenihan fondly stated, “The first time that we made it to International Career Development Center, ICDC, was during COVID so it was during virtual times, and then the following year I was able to take three students to Atlanta, and it was just really awesome to see so many kids just competing from all over the world.”
