DECA is a career and technical organization of marketing students, which has been around for about 20 years. DECA has an officer team who are chosen by the members of DECA and this year, the president is Vivek Ravi.

Mrs. Woodruff, who has been an advisor for DECA for 23 years, said, “What we do is that we learn leadership qualities, do a lot of community service, and participate in many competitions which give the students experience in interviewing and problem-solving.”

DECA is a great place for students to gain experience and to go out of their comfort zone by attending field trips and participating in competitions.

DECA’s field trips give the students a chance to learn about businesses and network with the people. The students gain experience in traveling with other people, meeting business professionals and others from around the world, and learning how to behave in a corporate place.

“The field trips teach the students things that can’t be taught in a classroom,” Woodruff said.

Mrs. Moore, another advisor for DECA, said, “The reason our students attend competitions and field trips is because that connects them to the workplace standards for the state of Arizona.”

The competitions are divided into district, state, and international levels. The district groups include Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, and Deer Valley.

“You don’t have to win the district competition to go to the state competition,” Woodruff said, “We consider district to be like a dress rehearsal so that the students have had a chance to go through it, try it, and find out what it really is.”

Although the students don’t have to win in the district competition, they can still win several awards.

51 students from DECA competed in state competition from March 2nd to March 4th. The state competition was held at the Arizona Grand Hotel and DECA received over 30 medals and 13 members qualified to go to internationals at the end of April which is held at Atlanta, Georgia.

The competitions DECA participates in are about problem-solving, training, or selling, which can develop skills that can be used for business related things. The competitions DECA participates in helps the students apply their critical thinking skills under pressure.

“Many of the competitions align with the state standards and many of them are role plays which are case studies,” Moore said, “They will give you a problem and you will have 10 minutes to read it and come up with a solution and then you are judged on how you present it, and the facts you present compared to everyone else in that category.”

There are also team events where two members are involved and they get more time to prepare so the judges expect their knowledge base to be more detailed. In addition to that, there are 30 page written events where the students have to have a comprehensive knowledge about marketing and then they are graded on the presentation and content of the paper.

“We prepare for these competition by doing many example role plays, sample test, and we use many other online resources,” Woodruff said.

Overall, DECA is a wonderful club for students to attend.

Mrs. Woodruff exclaimed “DECA is an awesome program and I believe very much in that it offers to the students and I have seen students grow so much from DECA.”