photo credit: Izzy Scholvin
Every year, students who are a part of the Distributive Education Clubs of America, better known as DECA, spend the school year preparing to travel to ICDC, a multi-day conference attended by over 25,000 students, advisers, business professionals and more, according to DECA. ICDC has been hosted all over the country, including Orlando, Florida and Anaheim, California. This year, it was hosted in Atlanta, Georgia on April 25 through April 28.
Students who qualified for competing at ICDC were senior Suvir Reddy and juniors Jenna Frase, Aaria Gala, Logan Moorhead, Samarah Nazzal, Shresthi Senthil, Parth Shah and Roman Wagner. Additional students who attended the trip include seniors Dane Barcalow, Saran Diane, Kriyanshi Shukia and junior Lainey Paoletta to represent the program’s student-run businesses (Fort Orange and Orange Apparel). Seniors Linden Marin and Olivia Rupp and juniors Nicolas Bruggeman and Pooja Shah attended the leadership Academy at ICDC.
“ICDC stands for International Career Development Conference, and it’s also an academic competition because most students are competing in their event. There’s up to 60 different competitive events they are competing in, and they have to qualify for those events through districts, states or another way,” Business Teacher Teresa Gellenbeck said, who runs the Orange DECA chapter and leads the trip.
Preparation for the competition begins much earlier than even the district or state competitions. Students spend months preparing competition material specific to their event, which can include organizing events, fundraising, researching and participating in mock presentations.
“If a student is competing, it’s a year-long process. Before and after competition, there’s prep work and studying. Some of the events have up to a 20-page paper, a 15-minute presentation or have a test and more of an interview,” Gellenbeck said.
Events that students can research and compete for cover many aspects of the professional business world, including topics in marketing, business management and administration, finance and hospitality and tourism, according to DECA.
“I competed for project management career development, which included a 20-page paper about events that we held. At ICDC, we presented our paper in a visual format. It was a 15-minute presentation, and we went through multiple rounds of that,” junior DECA member Shresthi Senthil said.
Students who didn’t qualify for ICDC still had the opportunity to go with their DECA chapter and grow academically and professionally.
“We had 12 students competing, and we brought a few on what’s called a campaign, where they attended a leadership academy. The bulk of ICDC is a competition, but there are academies and conferences where students can gain valuable leadership skills that they can bring back to help improve our DECA chapter,” Gellenbeck said.
The students who participated in the program and went on the trip learned vital professional skills while still practicing them in a real world setting. This is especially helpful and beneficial for students looking to go into a business field, as early exposure to the business world helps to head start their future.
“You build a lot of real world application skills like time management and communication. Going into DECA, I already knew I wanted to do something business related, but it’s definitely reinforced that I want to go into that field,” Senthil said.
ICDC also offered a way for students to have fun and explore the area and what it had to offer.
“If one didn’t make it to finals, we just explored around Atlanta. Our whole DECA chapter went to Six Flags, as there’s a thing called DECA night where they reserved the park for only DECA students,” Senthil said.
The memories made at ICDC are sure to last the students a lifetime, and the skills they learn throughout the process continue to leave an impact on their futures.
“For it to all come together, to see kids up on stage or taking them out of state for a trip just makes it all worth it in the end. All the time, all the stress, all the chaos, it makes it worth it,” Gellenbeck said.
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