DECA Provincials: Where Dreams Come True

By: Reckoner Staff |

The 2019 DECA Ontario Provincial competition was held at the Sheraton Center Hotel in downtown Toronto on 8 and 9 February 2019. Over 7 000 students competed for a chance to represent Ontario at the International Career Development Conference (ICDC). This year, ICDC will be held in Orlando, Florida from 25 April to 2 May 2019.

Students competed in oral and written events in five clusters: finance, hospitality and tourism, entrepreneurship, marketing, and business administration and management. Oral events included a written examination as well as an oral roleplay presentation, while written events involved preparing a written business proposal and then presenting it to a judge. Marketing cluster participants wrote their examination at the venue on Saturday, while the remaining exam-writing participants completed the written examination online on 4 February at school. All roleplays and presentations were held on the first day of the competition lasting from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Individual competitors performed in two roleplays and teams performed one.

This year, DECA Ontario changed the qualification system for ICDC, with the top overall-scoring student or student team from each judge qualifying rather than the top across all judges. As such, ten, nine, and eight students qualified from individual, written, and team events respectively.

Russell Ijaya, MGCI DECA’s president, said, “Without a doubt MGCI DECA has achieved amazing heights. It’s crazy that we used to be a chapter that could only dream of having ten ICDC qualifiers, we’re now one where exceeding that number is the new standard. DECA is a competition that teaches you the exhilaration of hard work paying off or sometimes the grit that comes with losing – I’ve had my fair share of both but they have added incredible value to my four years of DECA.”

A record-breaking number of MGCI students competed at the 2019 Provincial competition. With seventy-seven students competing, forty-nine awards were won while seventeen students qualified for the international competition.

Jacqueline Huo, a Grade 10 student who will be representing MGCI at internationals, said, “Being unsure if I’d even get into the chapter, I was very surprised when they called my name. I’m so grateful for my partner, we both put in so much work and it really paid off. Going to ICDC is a dream come true and I’m still in shock.”

The Reckoner congratulates the following students for their performance at the Provincial competition.

  • Nelson Lee and Steven Zhang (BMOR): Finalists, ICDC Qualifier

  • Maimuna Akhter (PFN): Top Roleplay I, Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Harrison Chiu (BFS): Top Roleplay I, Top Roleplay II, Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Emma Wai and Jessica Zhu (BLTDM): Top Roleplay, Top 15 Exam (Emma), Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Hargun Kaur and Abirami Sivakanthan (FTDM): Top Roleplay, Top 15 Exam (Hargun), Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Maggie Xu and Serena Meng (HTDM): Top Roleplay, Top 15 Exam (Serena), Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Angela Pang and Laura Lu (TTDM): Top Roleplay, Top 15 Exam (Angela), Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Jacqueline Huo and Lynn Shibata (TTDM): Top 15 Exam (Jacqueline), Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Jeffrey Qiu (ASM): Top 15 Exam, Top Roleplay II, Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Jason Cai and Tom Liu (STDM): Top Roleplay, Top 15 Exam, Finalist, ICDC Qualifier

  • Emily Shen and Wendi Zhang (BTDM): Top 15 Exam (Emily), Finalist

  • Aimee Li (PBM): Top Roleplay I

  • Daniel Neagu (PBM): Top Roleplay I, Top 15 Exam

  • Ivy Sun (PFN): Top Roleplay I

  • Brenan Srisatkuru (PHT): Top Roleplay I

  • Saesha Kukreja (PHT): Top Roleplay I, Top Roleplay II

  • Amy Chen (ACT): Top 15 Exam, Top Roleplay II

  • Harry Zhao (ACT): Top 15 Exam

  • Molly Yu (ACT): Top Roleplay I

  • Jim Wu (BFS): Top Roleplay I

  • Sarvesh Sivakumar (FTDM): Top 15 Exam

  • Gabriel Luo (HRM): Top Roleplay II

  • Russell Ijaya (HRM): Top Roleplay I

  • Ryan Chang (HTDM): Top 15 Exam

  • Justin Ye (TTDM): Top 15 Exam

  • Renee Jiang (AAM): Top 15 Exam

  • Charmaine Chang (FMS): Top 15 Exam

  • Andrew Li (MCS): Top Roleplay I, Top 15 Exam

  • Jenny Bai (MTDM): Top 15 Exam

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Reckoner Staff

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