DECA, which stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America, is a relatively new program to the school. It is a global organization of 297,000 students that aims to foster excellent leadership and entrepreneurial skills for the future. This year’s DECA competition was in Orlando, Florida. The competition comprises of different categories ranging from business management, administration, entrepreneurship, finance, hospitality and marketing.
The skills that DECA teaches others was a primary reason for club advisor Kurt Golubski to bring the program to the school.
“We’re teaching it because we’re in it for the kids,” Golubski said. “I promise you, there are students that will benefit tremendously just from being in the club. It’s a great experience for putting themselves out there, and they’re attempting something new.”
Senior Maddox Walker has seen the benefits being in DECA has on his daily life. “While I am majoring in engineering and not business, I still am very grateful for all the leadership skills I have learned from various competitions throughout the year,” Walker said. “I will absolutely take these skills into college.”
DECA has multiple competitions at the local, state, national, and even international levels
“[Students] get 10 minutes before they do the interview, so they have 10 minutes to develop their plan and their pitch with what they’re going to do,” Golubski said.
According to Walker, students spent months preparing to compete in DECA this year.
“We prepared months in advance, having to write a 25-page paper in preparation to even be selected to compete,” Walker said.“I would say we started preparing in November and finished up right before we left in April. The paper we wrote explained exactly what we presented [at the competition], just more detailed. We got gold certified from the paper, and therefore, qualified to go to ICDC [International Career Development Conference] to present.”
Students put in a lot of time and effort over the year, sowhen the students qualified for nationals, it was a very exciting moment for Golubski.
“I was proud to see those students make it [to nationals] and take on the challenge of competing at Nationals,” Golubski said. “It’s an impressive feat to even be able to win at State or get Gold Certified for our SBE.”
Being able to attend the National Conference as first year competitors with a first year coach is an a
ccomplishment due to the size of the conference. This year, DECA was filled with over 27,000 students from all across globe.
“My proudest moment at DECA Nationals was getting to watch the students interact with other students and advisors from not only all over the country but all over the world.” Golubski said. “It is pretty intimidating when you’re in the
same building as 27,000 other students and it’s your first time at Nationals. They did an amazing job of getting out of their comfort zones and networking with other people.”
Making Nationals was only one of Golubski’s favorite memories this year.
“Just watching the students, when they get done with their competition and have smiles on their face [makes being the sponsor of DECA worth it.]” Golubski said.
