DECA Regional Conference 2015
Thanks to Bay State College DECA members Rahul, Harbal, and Kimo for taking the time to give us a recap of their experience at the regional conference.
Before dawn on Friday the 6th of February, six business students and their advisor set out to bring honor to Bay State College by competing in the DECA Regional Competition. These students were Rahul, Kimo, Roxanne, Brian, Harbal, and Juanetta who competed in the following categories: International Marketing, Restaurant and Food Service Management, Emerging Technology Marketing Strategies, Human Resource Management.
This is an account of the experiences of Rahul, Kimo and Harbal competing for the first time in DECA.
It was a very fulfilling and exciting experience. When we entered the hall, we were overwhelmed with the number of students that were participating. All we saw were people looking professional in their suits and prepping for the competition. This first look itself gave us an idea of what it feels like to compete in such an event. There were many colleges taking part - UMass Dartmouth, Ithaca College, Endicott College, the host, Johnson and Wales University, and many more. It was amazing to see how many college students were participating. Although there were only six of us, our passion to get the gold did not fade away.
We settled down and were assigned our times to enter the competition.
“It was mine and Kimo's turn first," says Rahukl. "This was not good for us as we were not ready to enter, but nonetheless we went forward. We thought we did a good job, despite a few mistakes.”
We had the rest of the day to participate in workshops and hype up our teammates. Roxanne came back with a huge grin on her face after her event implying that she had aced her portion. So was the case with Juanette, Brian and Harbal. There were workshops going on providing us with good knowledge about business and personal skills too. Now it was time for the results. This was the worst time that we had throughout the day, not because it was bad but because we HAD TO WAIT FOR WHAT FELT LIKE 100 HOURS! It was killing us, and then they started to announce the winners. We were all excited and ready to be crowned winners. They went on and came to our categories. First they announced the winners from the International Marketing category. Unfortunately, Kimo and Rahul did not win. Not placing in their competition was hard on them, but both were excited to hear how their teammates did.
Next it was HR Management category. Unfortunately Juanetta didn’t win. But that was the end of the bad news! Next was the Restaurant and FS management category. And guess what? Roxanne finished in 1st place. It was a great feeling for us. Lastly, it was the Emerging Technology Marketing Strategies category and again Bay State finished in first place. Harbal and Brian took the gold.
It was an amazing day for the three of us, we learned a lot and met some great people. Professor Elena Swaim was a big help to us - mentoring and guiding us to have a great day. We are now looking forward to get the gold at the International Career Development Conference in Orlando this April. Hopefully with the guidance of our professor and our teammates behind our back, we all might just end up winning. .