My Experience in DECA

Thayer Leshko

March 13, 2019

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DECA has been more than just an extracurricular for me. DECA has been central to discovering the field that I am most interested in pursuing as a major and what I want to do with the rest of my life. DECA is a competitive student business organization with a variety of competitive events in topics ranging from sports marketing to entrepreneurship. For all of my time at high school, I competed in the Business Finance Series event and, while I competed each year in the state competition, what is most important to me is the fact that I consistently demonstrate tremendous improvement. In my first year of competition, I had little to no understanding of financial terms until I started to prepare, so performing at the state level was incredible. During my second year in DECA, I received an award for a top five test score, but my role play was not enough to carry me to the next round. When junior year arrived, I was determined to win and go all of the way to nationals, though not for the thrill of winning but out of the need to validate my hard work. I studied hard and placed first at the district competition in my event. At long last, I got through the state level by finishing second in the entire state of Pennsylvania to advance to nationals held in Atlanta, Georgia. The medals and trophies in my room are a reminder of what I accomplished, but the progress that I made each year speaks volumes to my fundamental desire to work every day to become a better person. With that in mind, I would consider my time competing in DECA to be the most rewarding experience in my high school career.