Happy and excited members of DECA club are preparing for the State competition. Out of 1100 students, 16 Creek students won the District competition and earned the right to participate in the State contest. The DECA team had taken 24 students to District, which means over half of Creek’s participants advanced. State will be taking place on February 26 and 27 in Dallas.

DECA, Delta Epsilon Chi and Distributive Education Clubs of America, is an international union of colleges and high school students and teachers, who learn about business and marketing.

“You have a partner, and an individual group, and then you do either role playing, or a test and essay, or a decision making and that’s basically how you kind of go to the motions of business practices,” secretary Ashlyn Pederson said.

The main purpose of this club is to prepare students who want to pursue business in the future.

“DECA is the business club and it’s goal is to prepare leaders and emerging teachers and just kind of teach people about the real world and how everything works in the business world,” Shail Gajjar, president of DECA club, said.

The district competition took place on January 16. District competition is an annual event where students show off their business skills in many situations, such as role-playing or tests.

“We prepare students in our club to get ready for that competition by pretty much printing out and showing them vocabulary worlds of the business world and just showing them a role play in a real business situation. Once they get to district, they have to prior take a test and they have to do a role play where  they sit down with a judge and pretend like the business situation actually happened,” Shail Gajjar said.

The next step to success is state competition. After the state contest, the national competition follows.

“The State competition is probably going to have close to about eight or about nine thousand students there. It’s very hard to advance from State to Nationals. Last year we had an alternate but we didn’t actually have any more advanced,” Ms. Mosely said.

Although students have to get 50 on the test at the District competition, they have to get 70 at the State one.

“I think the test is the most difficult part, the pretest that you take before you go, because students don’t like to study for tests. I mean, you only have to make a 70, you know, and sometimes we have difficulty people in doing that, because there are so many tests you have to study for at school, DECA is optional, so getting people study for test is a difficult part,” Ms. Mosely said.

To be successful in any DECA competition, students need to study. However, there are several more useful piece of advice.

“The secret of success in general is just being confident, and not being scared but being social and outgoing, ”Shail Gajjar said.

DECA club attracts students by its uniqueness and gives pupils a lot of opportunities.

“It’s real world applicable, sure, you learn a lot about business,cause they give you an issue and you have to come up with a solution to the issue and apply it to the company, which is like a role playing, within 20 minutes,” Ashlyn Peterson, a secretary of DECA club said.