DECA students will be going to the state competition in Downtown Detroit March 10-12.

DECA is a non-profit program throughout colleges and high schools for students interested in careers in marketing, hospitality, management and finance.

Throughout the school year, members of DECA train for a district competition in Lake Orion, and students who qualify go onto the statewide competition in Detroit.

“Everyone goes to the district competition in Lake Orion. You have a bunch of categories and you have to choose one of them. Then you take a test that corresponds to your category, and then at the competition you do a role-play in front of the judges,” senior Adam Schade said. “(For the roleplay) you have some sort of situation. So you have these tasks you have to do in your roleplay. For example, mine this year was a restaurant in a hotel needs to bring in more outside guests, so how would you bring them in.”

There are a wide variety of categories to chose from, but they all tie into the main theme of business.

“When you sign up you pick a certain category which ranges anywhere from apparel and accessories to automotive to whatever you can pick, and you compete in that category from districts all the way up to internationals,” senior Justin Rheaume said. “I did business service management.”

Many of the students who qualified for the state competition are seniors, some of whom have been a part of DECA since their freshman year, along with a handful of juniors.

DECA deals with a lot of what is learned in the business classes, but you don’t have to be in the classes to be a part of DECA.

If the students participating in the state competition in March, they will move on to the international competition which is held in Anaheim, California in April.