DECA students are trading in backpacks and notebooks for blazers and Mickey Mouse ears Friday-Wednesday as they travel to Orlando, Fl for the International Career Development Conference..

“It’s basically the nationals for DECA,” teacher and club advisor Demas Lamas said. “You had to qualify by going to district, and then if you did well at district, then you go to state. And then you go to nationals.”

Students are competing at the Orlando Convention Center, but they will also get to visit Disney World and Universal.

“With respect to the competition, I’m very excited to see the Orlando Convention Center,” freshman Jiya Sharma said. “I’m really excited for Disney and Universal.”

But by no means is the competition all fun and games. In fact, weeks and weeks of intense practice and taking mock exams go into preparing for DECA.

“I’ve been downloading documents off of DECA and I’ve bought some ICDC tests and I’ve been taking them, while also reviewing,” Sharma said. “And then, I’ve been talking to people who have finance knowledge and I’ve been practicing the roleplays with them.”

DECA conferences consist of a mixture of two different styles of competition: a test and a roleplay that revolve around finance and business. Each student selects a subject in which they compete year-round.

“My event is business finance, individual series,” sophomore Saanvi Verma said. “It’s a whole section where you have corporate finance, some questions about marketing, ethics, obviously, and business law. It’s basically what CFOs typically do.”

For Verma, attending ICDC is more about being part of a bigger community than a competition or a trip to Disney.

“I’ll meet people from China, Germany, Spain, and a bunch of other countries, Canada included,” Verma said. “So, I’m honestly more excited about meeting the community rather than just the competition itself. ‘Cause it’s an experience, you could say.”

For Lamas, however, this competition is a way for students to show off all they have learned and studied this year.

“This is the best of the best,” Lamas said. “So I’m just really excited to see how they perform and I know that they’ve done a lot to prepare.”