From 9 to 10 February, forty-nine MGCI DECA members dressed to impress as they attended the 45th Annual DECA Provincials in downtown Toronto. They joined 6200 students from across Ontario as they competed for a spot in the top 6 or 7 of their event to qualify for the International Career Development Conference (ICDC).

DECA is a student organization with chapters around the world where students prepare for careers in business by participating in a range of competitive events, which are sorted into clusters and usually involve an exam and a role-play or a written report or presentation.

“DECA is one of those rare extracurriculars that are both highly educational and extremely fun,” said MGCI DECA Vice President Alex Zhang.

The offerings range from events like Financial Consulting (FCE), where students take on the role of a consultant to make financial recommendations to clients, to those like Innovation Plan (EIP), where teams are tasked with creating an entirely new business, product, or service and selling the idea to the judge who plays the role of an investor.

“I’ve gained a lot of insight on how difficult and complicated it truly is to start a company, and the amount of dedication and devotion one must have in order to succeed in the entrepreneurial world,” said Grade 9 Student Alina Cui, who competed in EIP this year.

In order to compete at provincials, most students must first qualify at the regional competition in November. Following regionals, students continue to be hard at work preparing for provincials with the help of the MGCI DECA executive team. Members of MGCI DECA have access to training opportunities that include workshops on specific aspects of DECA like introductions and visuals as well as one-on-one practice roleplay sessions with trainers. There are also multiple resources that members can use to self-study, including a roleplay vault, exam vault, and textbook.

For many students, this past year of DECA has been positive. “Despite the fact that things didn’t end up how we had hoped, I feel like we tried our best and did what we could,” Alina commented. “Overall, it was a lot of fun and a great experience. The feeling of working hard, presenting our hard work to a judge at a professional event, and then seeing the result [was] like a huge achievement on its own.”

Winners were announced at the award ceremonies on the last day of competition. MGCI was very successful at provincials this year, with 24 students receiving recognition. 11 students from MGCI further qualified to compete with students from around the world at ICDC, which will take place from 27 to 30 April in Anaheim, California.

“When I joined in grade 9, MGCI sent only 5 students to ICDC,” Alex said. This number doesn’t even show how far so many of our members have come. Through meetings and one-on-one roleplay sessions, I’ve witnessed amazing improvement from so many of our newer members, and I’m certain that in future years, our ICDC qualifier count will only increase.”

The Reckoner would like to recognize the following students for their achievement at the 2024 Ontario DECA Provincials:

Raymond Mi: ICDC Qualifier, ASM

Sarah Hassan: Top 20 Overall, ASM

Stanley Zhou: ICDC Qualifier, BFS

Maxim Mohareb: Top 20 Overall, BFS

Eileen Kuang and Chang Chang Li: Top 20 Overall, BLTDM

Amy Lie: ICDC Qualifier, FCE

Victor Jiang and Sam Li: ICDC Qualifier, FTDM

Andy Sun and Oriana Zhou: Top 10 Finalist, FTDM

Swapnil Kabir and Alex Zhang: ICDC Qualifier, ETDM

Isabel Liu and Luck Xing: ICDC Qualifier, ETDM

Joy Zhou: Top 20 Overall, HLM

Maggie Pang: Top 20 Overall, HRM

Jessica Sun: Top 20 Exam, HRM

Alishbah Dholasania: Top 20 Roleplay, PHT

Eric Ma: Top 20 Overall, RMS

Kaibo Huang: Top 20 Roleplay, SEM

Andrew Chen, Anish Nagariya, and Luck Xing: ICDC Qualifier, SMG