Many students from our school traveled to Orlando for DECA states which was from March 2nd to 5th. Our school had two successful groups advance to internationals despite difficult competition. One group, Riley Floyd and Gianna Weingard, placed an impressive second place in their category.

Riley and Gianna are both sophomore students who take on rigorous academic schedules while still participating in many extracurricular activities. Even with a lot of activities to balance, they found time to achieve their goals of making ICDC with a twenty page paper and fifteen minute long presentation.

Floyd stated that they spent roughly thirty-forty hours at Starbucks working on writing their Franchise Business Plan paper. By meeting with each other in person they were able to communicate efficiently and share ideas, which helped them work faster.

She also gave insight on how they went about their project. “We basically used DECA plus as a big resource to find out what paper would be best for us to write based on our research and knowledge. Once we were set on our plan, we chose a business we wanted to franchise which ended up being The Ark Pet Spa and Hotel. By combining our strengths we were able to finish the twenty page paper,” said Floyd.

Once the two found out they were advancing to states, presentation prep began. Gianna explained that every available day they had, they would rehearse their presentations till perfection. Many people underestimate the weight the oral presentation has on the overall score and don’t practice enough, Weingard and Floyd made sure not to overlook it and created a PowerPoint Presentation and script for the big day.

Finally, tips the duo would share to anybody wanting to do a DECA project next year is to…
1. Start with a project that only requires ten pages and to find a reliable partner that puts in the same amount of work and effort that you do. It’s best to start smaller and work your way up to larger more complicated projects in the future.
2. Find help. There are many resources that allow DECA students at CSC strive. Go on DECA plus to look at examples, guidelines, and practice test, or find an officer that can go over what you’ve done to get some helpful corrections and feedback.
3. Be confident. If you are competing in front of a judge and blank out just keep going and sound like you know what you’re saying. It’s better to be assertive than have an unsure weak voice.