On January 8th-9th, the students in the DECA club, one of the biggest clubs in BHS, went to a competitive event in Quincy pitted against other schools, and a group of students managed to make it to state level. But what is DECA about?
“DECA is a club where people with different ideas and talents come to discuss, study, and learn more about the business world,” Jared Osagie informed. “There are different events at DECA such as financing, marketing, hospitality, and tourism. People who believe they are good at those types of events come together, study, and try to qualify for states.”
Because DECA gives opportunities to be economically smart in a variety of different ways, it attracts a lot of students. But not all DECA students joined just because of the different financial pathways. Some students joined because of the high amount of benefits.
“I joined DECA for the experience, college apps, and friends,” said Haoming Weng, one of the students that competed for DECA.
Some students joined because of the experience it gives in the real world.
“I joined DECA due to various levels of competition it offered, the practice skills it trained and developed to prepare me for the real world, and the prospect of being a businessman or an entrepreneur,” said Bao Tran.
And some students joined just because they were curious.
“I wasn’t even gonna join at first but I saw like one or two of my friends, and I was like, I guess I’ll sign up and see what it is about,” Jared Osagie said.
But what was the competition like overall?
“DECA Districts was really fun! It was definitely stressful at first because everyone was completing their role plays in the beginning and getting scored,” stated Vice President of Marketing Kaylee Wu
Other student presidents of DECA have similar opinions.
Jacob Brabant, the Vice President of Career Development said, “Districts were really fun over all! Everyone had been preparing for their events for months, so it’s really exciting to see everyone’s work pay off.”
With so many students at DECA there is going to be varying success.
“I believe my first interview went well,” Dustin Dam remarked. “But as expected, there are always halts or flaws within everything, like how not everyone can get an award even if they try their hardest.”
But overall Braintree did very well as a whole when it came to the roleplays.
“We hit a record this year,” said Kaylee Wu. “We have 15 individuals going to states this year, last year we only had 6. Plus so many people got medals too! I’m really excited for what DECA will look like next year, and I’m a little sad I won’t be there to see it.”
One of the qualifiers, Bao Tran, truly excelled during the event and used very important life skills.
“I shined in my ability to think on my feet to respond to novel questions that I didn’t prepare for, as well as make diagrams to further illustrate my point to the judges.”
Now that the event is over, many people in DECA are focusing on what’s next.
Bao Tran continued, “My plans for the future are placing in states to move on to nationals to compete in Atlanta. It’s a far-fetched goal especially for a first year but I’ll work towards it and see what I can do.”
