Leigh Charlton, Reporter
@leighcourant
Imagine that you are a college student moving into an off-campus apartment. As the apartment rent is too high for you to afford on your own, you have chosen to advertise for a roommate. You will be meeting with a potential roommate to discuss financial expectations. A problem like this one is similar to the roleplay that junior Lauren Meyers encountered while competing in the Personal Financial Literacy division at the DECA conference.
DECA, a career and technical student organization recognized by the United States Department of Education, holds annual state conferences to provide an extension of classroom learning in real-world scenarios. The Connecticut conference hosted approximately 1,100 students from high schools across Connecticut, with representation from familiar names such as Darien, Trumbull, and Danbury. NCHS’ eleven-student Future Business Leaders class also competed and was successful. Senior Ben Durkin placed third in the Human Resources Management division, while juniors Lauren Meyers and Charlie Sokolowski were recognized as finalists in the Personal Financial Literacy and Business Services Marketing categories, respectively.
Competitors took a multiple choice exam and answered a judge’s questions as part of a roleplay scenario. “There are two rounds, and in each round you get a roleplay,” Ben said. “You have ten minutes to assess the roleplay and come up with a solution. You then present that situation to the judges for another ten minutes. You tell them what you would do— how you would market it, how you would fix the problem, depending on what category you are in.”
The roleplay topic varies among the different categories. “I was a head manager of marketing at a local furniture firm,” Charlie said. “It was my job to make a website for them and I had to convince the owner of the company that a website would be better than an actual store.”
DECA gave students the opportunity to showcase both their business skills and develop new strategies. “I definitely learned how to confront someone,” Lauren said. “It showed me how to talk to someone in that kind of situation and how to be more business-minded. The conference was very helpful in learning how to manage myself.”
Ben took the chance to learn from the college students competing in the collegiate division of the conference. “There was some down time in between presentations when you could talk to other students or could go see the college stands
that were there,” he said.
This was the second time that NCHS students have attended the event. They competed against schools who have been participating in the DECA conferences for over 20 years. Business teacher Lisa Lombardo is proud of how well her students performed. “We did awesome,” Ms. Lombardo said. “I am so proud of them. It was an absolutely great learning experience and they will definitely use these skills in the future.”
Much like Ms. Lombardo, Lauren is also proud of how her class performed. “I think that we did really well, especially because we are such a small class,” she said. “To take home three awards out of the eleven students that came is pretty impressive, especially when you think about how big the other classes were. Some schools had 60 people come.”
