DECA Provides Home for Future Entrepeneurs

If you are looking into a career in business or aspire to be an entrepreneur some day, DECA is the place to be for you. Established in 1946, DECA has grown to be a multinational organization with over 200,000 high school members in 3,500 different schools across the world.

DECA trains its students in areas of business administration, finance, marketing, and hospitality. They host many leadership and career development conferences (CDCs) every year, in which participants compete to win top prizes in all areas of competition.

At MHHS, DECA is just getting off the ground. It has over 40 committed members who are more than excited for the year the officers have planned. Some have participated in an event called the “Virtual Business Challenge”, or VBC for short, in which competitors use “highly visual simulation software to manage a business.”

Already, many teams here at MHHS have placed in the top tier of state and regional rankings in their first year of competing.

President Deevy Bhimani is thoroughly enjoying what he and other students like to call home. “[I like] the real life experiences I recieve running this club,” Bhimani, a junior, told me in an interview last week.

“The main thing that inspired me to start DECA is business. I've always wanted to start a business of my own, and [I] saw DECA as an amazing place to start learning. Since DECA did not exist at MHHS, I decided on starting it in order to give others as well as myself an opportunity to explore new fields.”

Member Vishwas Shukla (also a junior) has much to say about what he has done in DECA. He joined as a freshman at Lynbrook High School’s DECA before co-founding the club here with Bhimani last year.

Like Bhimani, Shukla also joined DECA for the business skills he will be able to build while in the club. “The main reason I joined DECA was because of the lifetime experiences that DECA gives to you.” He also says that DECA is different from most clubs because it actually helps you in the long run and the skills learned in DECA are going to be helpful [for] you after high school.”

However, DECA does require some major work to be done before it can be competitive. According to the advisor, Mr. Geuss, MHHS will eventually have to offer some DECA-centric programs and classes to students to have a leg-up over the competition.

“Ultimately, DECA needs a business, marketing, and economics teacher at mountain house [high school] to funnel more students into the program and provide the necessary materials and education to compete locally and globally with other DECA organizations," said Geuss.

DECA meets occasionally on Thursdays at lunch in Room C207 and is always welcome to new members. The club is planning to attend the State CDC in San Diego in March, and if members qualify for it, the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) in April, which will take place this year in Nashville, Tennessee.