DECA Crash Course Week 1: Choosing Your Written Event

Hey everyone, welcome to the first post in my series, a DECA 20 week crash course that will guide you through all the wonderful madness, from choosing an event to presenting your winning report to a judge! I've designed this series so I can share my tips from (as of next year) 4 years of experience (including things I learned from being an ICDC finalist) with all of you, so feel free to ask questions and give feedback through these next several weeks. Today, I'll be starting off with the basics: deciding what event is right for you!

Week 1: Choosing an event.

When I was faced with the task of deciding between 20+ events freshman year, I was pretty overwhelmed! But taking the time to look through each event's guidelines, pros, and cons, I was able to find the perfect event for myself, and you can, too! It's really important to find an event that you can thrive in, so please don't skip out on this very important step.

So what's the difference between all the written events that DECA offers?

There are several popular events, namely:

• Project Management (PMBS, PMCD, PMCA, PMCG, PMFL, PMCG, PMSP)
• Business Operations Research (BOR, BMOR, FOR, HTOR, SEOR)
• Entrepreneurship (EIP, ESB, EIB, IBP, EBG, EFB)
• Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMCE, IMCP, IMCS)

...and here's my two cents on them!

• Choose project management events if you've made (or plan to make) real change in your community. These events require you to design a project and involve your chapter/members of your community and raise awareness about the field of business. Keep in mind that the first conference of the year (at least where I'm from) is in December, so you must have time to execute your project and write your report until then. 
• Tip: each chapter event can only be done by 1 team per chapter, meaning there's less competition for this event. 
• Choose research events if you'd like to learn the inner workings of an existing business in your community and develop a plan for them based on the assigned topic of the year. You do not need to go out an execute these plans, but they should be developed so well that you could do so if needed. 
• Choose entrepreneurship events if you'd like to develop a business proposal. Have you ever wanted to start a tea shop? An online roti-delivery service? These are the events for you! You'll create a proposal for creating a business from the ground-up, and learn numerous skills, from defining your market to crunching your financials.
•  Tip: These events have pretty high competition, but don't let this deter you! Hard work and passion for your project will get you where you need to be.
• Integrated Marketing Campaign events are where all that time spent on social media comes in handy, for the prompt is to develop promotional plans! If you're a creative person and want to come up with fun ways for businesses to get their names out, then these events are perfect for you! Get inspiration off Instagram and hone your inner funky cat for these events!

Some other factors to think about...

• The competition. Don't let this aspect drive you, because I guarantee that if you choose an event simply for the lack of the competition, it will be hard to feel motivated. Choose an event that you're comfortable in and enjoy, and your passion will show!
• The testing component. Some written events have a test, so if testing is your strength, consider these events! Even if you're weaker at testing, there are so many resources online, so study, study, study :).
• Report length. I honestly prefer events with longer reports because there's just so much content to put on the page once you get started. Though 20 pages may seem like a lot, remember that you're researching/developing an entire business, so there's already a lot to cover. However, if you are better at graphic design and can make your report look visually appealing within a limited space, you might consider a shorter report.
• Team or solo. This isn't really a consideration for choosing an event, but make sure that whichever event you end up pursuing, you have a great team to work with. Finding the perfect partner(s) is essential; choose people you're comfortable being around, but you can also be honest with. Efficiency is important, and even if you don't partner with your friends, you'll still be working with them at workshops and at conferences, so you definitely won't miss out on anything! Don't forget, you can still do these events solo and have a great experience.

This is the general overview of each event type; go ahead and read specific guidelines if you want to learn more about each individual event.

Also, don't be afraid to change your event from year-to-year; DECA's all about trying new things! Ultimately, try to learn as much as you can, and the experience will be incredible.

Now, before I sign off, I want to leave you guys with a couple of fun resources in case you're still deciding which event to pick:

• A Flowchart by DECA Inc. (includes written, roleplay, and online events)
• An Interactive quiz by DECA Ontario
• A DECA Direct Article + Prezi
• A Flowchart on DECA Direct

What's your opinion about choosing events in DECA? Tell me in the comments below! And if you have anything you'd like me to cover in upcoming posts (or would just like to say hello), please let me know here! This series is for all of you, so don't be afraid to ask me questions.

Thanks for reading, see you next week!