Hundreds of high school students arrived at Eastern Michigan University Thursday and Friday for Michigan’s Distributive Education Clubs of America’s fourth and fifth district competitions.
“DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in the areas of marketing, finance, hospitality and management,” said Leah Moskovitz, the vice president of Chapter Development at Michigan DECA. “We are here today to just focus on preparing these emerging leaders and help them grow in business skills.”
Michigan’s DECA chapter is an organization centered in EMU’s King Hall. David Wait is currently Michigan’s state director.
The conference started at 9 a.m. with an opening ceremony. Competitions were taking place all over the Student Center until awards were presented at around 1 p.m.
There are about 30 different event competitions students can choose to be a part of, and judges choose the winners of each one.
“We evaluate them based on how well they hit on the indicators given on the sheet and the rubric that they have,” said Eric Schambers, a judge at the conference.
Winners of each category are awarded medals and an opportunity to compete in the state competition, which takes place in Grand Rapids, Mich. in March. Winners of the state competitions are nominated for positions in the student organization.
“It was fun and it was hard at the same time. We had to just plan
things in only 30 minutes,” said competitor Ashley Quint from Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte.
Some of these competitions include making up your own business, while others include solving issues people come across in the marketing business.
Although students know which event they are in, they do not know the details of the case until they are ready to compete.
“This is a good opportunity because it gives them real life scenarios that they may face in the future, and it gives them practical experiences that could definitely benefit them down the road,” Schambers said. “I would recommend this for any student, because virtually every job you’re going to have in the future is going to be business related, so it provides some kind of experience for them.”
