Business enthusiasts suit up for success

Sonya Khanna

Business Editor

Eager business enthusiasts congregated in CIBC Hall on Jan. 14 to showcase their business talents in preparation for the DECA provincial competition at the end of January.

DECA seeks to provide students with hands-on experience, enhancing business skills and providing networking opportunities; delegates spawn from various educational disciplines.

Saturday’s competition sought to prepare DECA delegates for the provincial competition, providing hopefuls with a practice run of sorts, putting their skills to work doing one role play in front of judges, consisting of a wide range of industry professionals, McMaster University professors as well as previous Mac DECA execs.

“In this event everyone does one role play, it’s just a practice run. At Provincials they will being doing two role plays,” said Andrea Leon, Co-President of McMaster DECA U. “The main difference between is that at this event judges will give one-on-on feedback after they present. Provincialsis just a role play with no feedback and students will find out their mark later. This is about giving delegates feedback and helping them improve.”

DECA U provides students with the opportunity to build on previously acquired knowledge, allowing delegates to incorporate skills hands-on in the fields of marketing, business and entrepreneurship. Delegates are provided with the ability to implement academic knowledge, broaden networking opportunities and acquire real world skills.

“The main difference between DECA at the high school level compared to the University level is now it’s more about presentations, placing and networking,” said Leon. “There is a huge focus on networking and there are many industry professionals.”

Although business is the name of the game for this competition, delegates from a wide range of educational backgrounds are encouraged to participate cialis costs in the competition.

“The competition is open for everyone,” said Leon. “We’re not just business students, there are science student, engineering students. The individual who founded DECA at McMaster University was in Science. We’re an MSU club open to everyone and we understand not all student will have business knowledge so we train them through the year.”

With the competition encompassing a primarily business relevant aura some student might feel a sense of reluctance in participating in the competition particularly if they are lacking somewhat in the business knowledge department. Leon encourages students not to let fickle nerves get the best of them and emphasizes the importance of practice as a key driver to success.

Leon urged delegates to acknowledge the importance of roleplay to improve their chances in the competition and offered some words of wisdom from personal experiences to boost the confidence of DECA enthusiasts.

“Stay in the role as DECA is a lot about presentation but also role playing and a bit of improvisation,” said Leon. “Staying in role will help improve your mark. It’s also important to believe you can attack anything and have the confidence to do it.”

The McMaster University DECA chapter has expanded from 72 delegates attending the provincial competition in the previous year, to 99 students participating this year.