21
May 2019
by Alyssa Matzoni ’21 (Immaculata House)
Recently I represented Trinity at the International DECA Competition in Orlando, Florida. I qualified for this competition based on my performance at the state competition in Hershey in February. I competed in the Restaurant and Food Service Management individual portion of the competition. All individual competitions, consisted of a written exam based on business vocabulary, situational questions, and applications of business context to answer questions.
To prepare, I took practice tests and used quizlets to familiarize myself with the information and vocabulary. For the role play, participants aren’t told ahead of time about the situation, so the best preparation I could do is practice examples and work on social cues and skills when presenting.
The next part of the competition consisted of two role play scenarios. I was given a scenario and some performance indicators. I had ten minutes to write up a business plan for the issue and resolve questions posed by the company. I then presented my plan of action to my judge in another ten to fifteen minute session.
While at DECA, I really was amazed by the amount of people attending (21,000!) and the diversity of the people within all fifty states and various countries, including China. I met people from all over, and networking was highly encouraged. I learned various presentation skills from some other students I met, and will apply these next year during the competition.
I plan to grow DECA within Trinity High School and hopefully there will be many Trinity students at the International Conference in Tennessee next year! DECA is really a club for anyone interested in any profession; the competition has teams and individuals with competitive events spanning from roleplays to a written report. The subject matter is also impressive. People attended to compete in just about every subject, from traditional accounting and financial planning to automotive services and fashion. I plan to stick with my subject of Restaurant and Food Service Management, but my future plans are headed in a different direction. I would like to stick with business in some sense, possibly minoring in international business or quantitative economics. I look forward to continuing to build my business knowledge and practical skills through more work with Trinity’s DECA moderator Mrs. Scholtz and DECA competitions next year!