Monroe DECA was honored at the Monroe Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, May 10 for having seven first place students advance to the International Career Development Conference (ICDC).
Principal Robert Goodall expressed his gratitude toward Ms. Deborah Stapenski and the students for representing Monroe Township High School at ICDC, and for setting a record of having seven first place finishers place in the state-level competition.
DECA is a high school business club-organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality and management around the globe. It allows high school students to transform into a businessman or woman and let them experience a taste of the modern business world.
This year, the MTHS chapter led 12 students to California for the competition. Besides the aforementioned seven, one received third, and three students achieved the title of state finalists to advance to ICDC in California.
DECA is both nationally and internationally recognized with all 50 states and eight countries participating for a total of over 300,000 members. Of these, only 10,000 make it to compete internationally at ICDC.
First place top finishers seniors Naomi Doshi and Natasha Reddy, sophomores Riyana Doshi and Sreeja Mamillapali, and freshman Nidhi Shah achieved certificates of excellency at ICDC for their outstanding performance in their respective business topics of Finance and Marketing.
DECA advisor Stapenski says, “It is amazing to see Sreeja, Riyana, and Nidhi advance from regionals to states, and to ICDC – and they are only in their first year of this club. But it is also admiring to see Natasha and Naomi advance after putting in years of hard work.”
Shah, Doshi, and Mamillapali created a fashion merchandise promotion plan for New York and Company, in order to increase the revenue of the company.
During the state competition, they received a 95 out of 100 points for their promotion plan and were praised by New Jersey DECA.
Sophomore Riyana Doshi says, “Our creative ideas of using social media to help promote our ideas made us shine among the hundreds of other competitors. Our hard work proved to have results, which I am really happy about.”
They continued their success this year in Anaheim, California after receiving certificates of excellency for having an overall performance of 270 out of 300 points.
Similarly, Reddy and Doshi also received an overall performance of 270 out of 300 points for their role play of a financial situation.
Monroe Township DECA also made history this year for achieving new statuses as a thrive level chapter, a community service chapter, and finally as a premier level business club in the state level competition.
The success of the MTHS chapter led to many state finalist having the chance to go to ICDC to participate and learn more about business through top brands and universities such as Nike and Cornell University.
Sophomore Kimvy Tran said, “As you advance, the experience at DECA gets even better and better. Not only do you get the rush of adrenaline from competition, but you also get to personally meet the people behind major brands and businesses and be more than a regular high school student.”
How will you prove that you are more than a high school student?
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