Here’s what to expect from SME DECA this year.

Through test taking, roleplay and competition, DECA is a program that pursues a mission of teaching students how to think on their feet, communicate and be prepared for a future career in business.  

According to the Marketing teacher and DECA sponsor, Mercedes Rasmussen, through DECA students are able to learn how to brainstorm, be confident, work with others, communicate effectively, present to others during competitions, be organized and time efficient. DECA isn’t just about the competitions — it’s about preparing students for the future and equipping them with necessary skills. 

“It’s not important how you do in DECA,” senior DECA member, Kansas State DECA Secretary and treasurer Greta Horton said. “I have learned so many valuable skills from it.”

DECA is similar to Debate in that students compete in six to seven hour competitions throughout the year.  However, DECA is different in the fact that it is not offered as a class at East — most students take the class marketing instead.

Rasmussen believes the way students present themselves at a competition is important. Formal attire such as a dress for women and sports coats for men are required.  Rasmussen believes it teaches the students that when appearing in a formal setting, it is appropriate to dress the part.  

Once they are dressed the part, the students go and compete.  Each competition is broken up into two sections — roleplay and written.

In the roleplay section, students are either in pairs or by themselves depending on the category they chose.  They are given a prompt detailing a business problem and have 10 minutes to think of a solution. Once the 10 minutes are up, the students are taken to another room and present their plan to the judges at the individual booth scattered around the main room immediately after introductions. The student is expected to be in their role the moment they enter the room. 

“You don’t say “Can we start?” or anything,” said Horton.  “You literally just go up and say, Hi, I am Greta Horton and this is our marketing pitch.” 

There are many different possible categories and subdivisions within each category for the students to sign up for. 

According to Rasmussen some of the categories include: Principle of Business, Team Decision Making, Individual Series Events, Personal Financial Business Operations, Research events and many others. 

Students are also able to sign up for multiple categories within one competition. 

According to senior Rachel Currie, having the right partner and thinking through your choices are extremely important for role play. With the right partner you should be able to anticipate their thoughts and there won’t be any surprises. Partners bounce ideas off of each other and they have to work together well to come up with a pitch in 10 minutes. 

“We just think about which category would be our strongest suit,” said Currie. “[Olivia Smith and I] just mesh really well, which is a really important part of DECA.

The written portion of competitions is a 100 question long test that correlates to the category the student chose to compete in. According to Horton, some of the questions are more obvious while others are more difficult. 

“[Questions include] what kind of information is this, a primary source, a secondary source,” said Horton. “Then there are easy thrown in questions like for the best customer service, should workers react to the customer in an angry manner, in a nice manner, or in a funny manner?” 

According to Rasmussen, through DECA students are able to grow in a unique way and gain the skills needed in future jobs now.