DECA, a business club run by teacher of business teacher Melissa Deboer, is open to all Sales/Merchandising/Marketing students. According to Deca.org, DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in finance, hospitality, and marketing in high schools around the world. Globally, there are about 185,000 high school DECA participants in eight countries.

DECA’s competitive events are designed with specific techniques that directly contribute to college/career readiness. The events are community oriented, which allows club members to responsibly participate within their own environments. It also puts an emphasis on each individual’s growth and setting a high standard of ethics.

For Senior Lynn Biddinger, who plans to go into Sports Management, a business oriented side of the sports world, she has found concepts that she learned within her three years participating in DECA to be particularly helpful.

“At competitions, you are given a role play situation that might happen, and then you have between 10- 20 minutes to prepare how you would react to that situation and what you would do,” Biddinger said. “Then, you go and present it to a judge.”

She plans to apply concepts learned in the club in her future job.

“The business terms are something I can actually use in the real world,” Biddinger said. “They apply to the sorts of things I’ll be doing with sports management, like ticket sales, planning of events, and anything else related to marketing.”

Biddinger has learned how to conduct herself professionally and can now strategize solutions to problems she may face. 

“I think I’ve learned to conduct myself in a more professional manner,” Biddinger said. “I think this also has made me a little more aware of what is actually happening in the world and what problems businesspeople face every day. I can now come up with ways to solve problems, which is something I could never do before.”

DECA puts a huge emphasis on team building strategies, which demonstrate National curriculum standards of each individual and group, through different activities.

Senior Jazmin Bishop, who plans on going into accounting, finds the practice DECA gives her with working as a team to be beneficial.

“I want to go into finance,” Bishop said. “In the workplace, you have to work as a team, and we do team building exercises. Last year, we had to get phone numbers from people, and we had to work together as a team to do that. I definitely have team building experience.”

Through different strategies and concepts, DECA helps students prepare for the professional world outside of high school.