The State Career Development Conference was one of the biggest events in the DECA competition, with Madison Matherly and Isbel Tibbits bringing home 3rd place medals. After competing at a smaller conference in the area, people can either qualify for your event in the area to make it to state, or, as some people did, a written event, which is straight to state. The State Career Development Conference brought over 6,000 DECA competitors from all over Washington state to Bellevue.

Lake Stevens High School students competed in multiple events, some of which were written, and then made a presentation to compete with.

“I’m currently preparing for state competition by going over my franchise business plan presentation and using my document to get information to add relevant things onto my presentation,” senior Nathaly Torres said.

When people get to state there are multiple events. Only some of them are prepared events, meaning people already know what they are doing for their event. Then there are roleplays, during roleplays people have performance indicators. Which means people have no idea what they have to prepare for but only the previous ones from years before.

“Just looking over test things and looking at old PI’s (Performance Indactors),” junior Noah Shinagawa said.

People practice and study old events and performance indicators to try and get on stage at state for a chance to compete at the International Career Development Conference. Some competitors compete in two different events, so they have a higher chance to make it to internationals.

“I’ve been practicing my presentations. I have two presentations, and I made scripts for them, and I’m practicing my scripts over and over again until I’m confident about them and I can, like, make sure I don’t read off my scripts,” junior Sharmitha Dornadula said.

The way DECA competitors prepare for their events are all different, either they are writing scripts, finishing their presentations, or even studying old performance indicators. All for the spot on the stage at state, to qualify for their next stop. The International Career development conference, so they can become number one in all of the nation.