Naya Sharma | June 14, 2021
Recently, students at The Woodlands competed in the ICDC Conference, bringing their business and problem solving skills to an international level. Despite the virtual format, students excelled at both their exams and case studies and brought back a large number of awards. There are huge congratulations in order for not only the ICDC award winners, but all DECA participants for their achievements this year.
DECA is an organization that prepares students for a future career in fields such as marketing, management and finance. The six clusters of competition are marketing, finance, business management & administration, hospitality, entrepreneurship, and principles. There are also three types of events; orals - which consist of roleplay and multiple choice - written events, and online events.
This year, the DECA Woodlands chapter had 167 members, a number similar to years in the past, despite restrictions implemented due to the pandemic. After regionals, 145 competitors qualified to progress to the next stage of competition, provincials. However, the haul of 24 score-based awards was a lower number than usual. “The most significant reason for this is changes in the award system by DECA itself,” says William Yao, the co-president of the DECA Woodlands chapter and an ICDC 1st place winner. To compare, in 2018 The Woodlands won over 100 awards at regionals.
Woodlands DECA's 2020-2021 Yearbook Collage, featuring dozens of competing participants from this school year.
At provincials this year, the Woodlands chapter had 133 total awards, 35 finalists in the top 14, and 44 ICDC qualifiers. Some of the clusters did particularly well, including hospitality, which had 7 ICDC qualifiers, and online events, which had 18 qualifiers.
At ICDC, our school was once again, very successful. The International Career Development Conference, commonly known as ICDC, is the final level of competition for DECA members. The competition consists of multiple choice and role play events, but also some additional opportunities in the form of conferences and exhibits. The event occurred virtually this year, officially taking place between April 12 and May 6, 2021. Online multiple choice exams and written entries took place during the week of April 12-16, while the Preliminary Competition took place from April 19-23. The Grand Awards Session was held on May 6th, at 8 PM EST. The Woodlands school finished the year off with 21 top 10 finalists, including 3 third place finishes, 2 second place finalists, and 6 first place winners. This is an incredible feat and these winners, as well as all of the members of the Woodlands chapter, deserve to be applauded for all of the hard work they put into DECA this year.
The DECA community is very present at our school. As one of the largest school clubs, DECA Woodlands has a strong reputation of incredible performance which Yao says is, “the real source of our membership.” He mentioned that ninth graders arriving at the Woodlands have already seen success from the DECA Chapter at our school. Many of them participated in the Woodlands Junior Leadership Conference, an outreach event for middle school students that gathered over 230 students last year. Yao, and Co-President Linda Zhao, were among the first place finishers from our school at ICDC, for their category, Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMCS).
Yao and Zhao at the DECA ICDC 2021 Virtual Award Ceremony, where they took home the first place award for the Integrated Marketing Campaign category..
DECA has also provided great experiences for many members of the club, and helped them develop various skills that will allow them to succeed in their academics and futures. Brendan Fox, an ICDC finalist from Sports and Entertainment Marketing (SEM), shared that “There is nothing better for developing practical business experience, knowledge and skills. DECA teaches you communication and presentation skills, problem-solving, and critical thinking, and it’s been super helpful for me.” He also remarked that DECA has taught him the importance of hard work and determination, and that it is very rewarding to see that hard work paid off at ICDC finals.
DECA provides different directive roles within the club as well. Students have the opportunity to be executives as well as directors of clusters. Yifei Ma, a grade twelve student at our school and the Director of Marketing, spoke about what it’s like to be a director in the club. “Being a part of the director team is like being a brick in a stone bridge; directors are essentially the connecting piece between executive and member.” He added that being a director means being responsible for preparing their cluster for competition. It is also encouraged for directors to keep cluster members engaged by coming up with interactive activities that will challenge their knowledge and ensure understanding. Some examples of these activities could potentially include Kahoots, Pictionary or Jeopardy. Yifei also explained that directors are responsible for support outside of club meetings, such as one-on-one seminars where students can receive insight and suggestions for improvement when practicing roleplays. To describe his experience this year, he stated that “Overall, the experience this year has been frustrating at times, however continued enthusiasm and interest from DECA members despite the circumstances has helped to ease the pandemic directing experience.”
Overall, the DECA Woodlands Chapter has had another successful year. With 21 top ten finalists at ICDC and hard work put in from all club members, the club has shown immense resilience despite the current circumstances. DECA is a great club to join for anyone interested, full of supportive members, great experiences and amazing opportunities provided to all members.
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