LTHS’s DECA group anxiously counts down the days, waiting for March 9th to come around the corner. Since almost the very start of the school year, DECA has been hard at work prepping and studying for the competitions to come throughout the 2022-2023 school year, and the pressure has been turned up as March 9th crawls closer and closer.

DECA is a business-based club that is participated in world-wide. When joining DECA, one must choose a section to participate, learn, and compete in. Some of these sections include marketing, finance, and entrepreneurship. Not only does DECA work to help a student through school, DECA also encourages skills and confidence used throughout all stages of life after high school.

“DECA is basically a business-based organization that helps high school students apply business knowledge and speech skills in order to be more professional when going into jobs and overall adult lifestyles,” said sophomore Anya Biju.

While DECA has many experienced particpants, this year ushers in a multitude of beginners who are eager for the experience. Although the majority of new participants are freshman, there is still a sizeable amount of students who join from all grades. However, no matter what age you are, trying something new such as DECA can be a bold and slightly intimidating step forward.

“I’m pretty nervous, actually,” said freshman Diya Kumar, “but my partner and I are preparing because it’s gonna be much more difficult with more people and obviously since we’re freshman, we don’t know much about DECA, so we’e not as experienced.”

Biju, who is also a new addition to DECA, shares similar sentiments.

“I am really excited for it but really scared,” said Biju. “I have made a lot of new friends in school, especially that are actually going to state with me, so having that opportunity to be with all of them and experience and know how they felt will help me calm down and also see what I’m looking forward to next year.”

DECA does take a high level of dedication. As students prepare for March 9th, they describe using resources and websites provided by the DECA instructors along with more common study tools such as quizlet, where they practice vocabulary, scenarios, and more.

“The DECA instructors give you websites and stuff with practice roleplays, so we just look over those and prepare that way,” said Kumar.

The actual competition works like this: there are several levels in the DECA competition, with the first one being relatively early in year as a district competition. The people who moved on are now going to the state competition, where they can continue to advance by succeeding in role-playing scenarios for their certain business aspect and if they are given a high rating from the judges.

“For District, we were preparing since we learned about it, which was like September. District was sometime in January, so it was very recent, and we’ve been preparing since we learned about it with the resources. For state, since its a lot sooner to district, we just started preparing immediately after. We try to meet up sometimes during Megalunch during the week to like prepare together. We also call a lot at home and meet up outside of school as well, said Kumar.

All in all, LTHS cheers on Diya, Anya, and everyone who is going to State competitions on March 9th! Anxiety might be high, but excitement may be running even higher as fond memories made in DECA so far this year rise to the surface and provide encouragement for everyone.

“It’s just taught me more about business concepts and how to solve problems in real life,” said Kumar.