Neuro Kid Takes on Business – Pt.1 : Freshman Year

Let’s go back to freshmen year when the only thing that could make you more awkward in high school was joining a business club. I mean, what high schooler actually wants to put on a suit (yes, we wear full pantsuits, ties, heels, full professional attire) and sit down to talk money on a random Saturday.

Ya… I didn’t either.

But I needed to join a school club so why not take after my mom and do DECA? During my time throughout my first year with DECA, I learned five main things:

1. It’s legit. Like, really legit.

At first, I thought DECA was just a cute school thing. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

DECA is a full-on international organization. There are high schoolers doing this all over the country — actually, all over the world. (Hi, ICDC. We’ll get there.)

I joined my school’s chapter alongside some friends, not really knowing what to expect. That year, our school had about 120 students competing — which is kind of a lot. But the number that really mattered wasn’t how many joined. It was how many made it to States… and beyond.

2. It’s all about the glass.

Early on, I kept hearing this one phrase over and over:
“We’re going for glass.”

And I was like… huh?

Glass = the iconic, boxy trophy awarded at DECA Internationals (aka ICDC: International Career Development Conference). It’s this idolized, big rectangular glass thing that every DECA kid wants. Badly.

I didn’t really get it — like, it’s just a chunk of glass? But also… I kind of do get it. The more I competed and studied and worked at DECA, the more I wanted the glass, and the more I realized I was turning into a DECA kid.

Anyway, here’s how the DECA competition system works:

• Districts → local level
• States → top scorers from districts
• Internationals (ICDC) → top scorers from States 
• Finals → you have to final at ICDC to even have a chance at glass
• Only the top three in the world win glass.

Not intimidating at all, right?

3. It’s kind of a big deal.

DECA is a lot more than just showing up in a suit and smiling at judges. People (myself now included) really care. We study. We prep. We stress. I’ve cried over DECA more times than I’m ready to admit — and I’m okay with that.

Freshman year though? I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I decided to compete with a friend (we’ll call her Mandy). We weren’t super close, but we weren’t strangers either. And like every other team, we had to pick an event. There are dozens of events in different categories, but they all fall into two buckets:

• Prepared events (you write a 50-page paper throughout the year and present it)
• Role play events (you get a random scenario on the spot, prep for 10 mins, then present)

Mandy and I said “absolutely not” to writing a literal novel, so we picked a partner role play event that sounded fun: Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making.
Catchy, right?

We weren’t trying to win. We barely knew how to take the exam (yes, there’s a 100-question test too). But we figured we’d just show up and see what happened.

4. Districts doesn’t do DECA justice.

Our first DECA competition ever — Districts — was… underwhelming.

Picture this: 3,000 high schoolers dressed like mini CEOs, sitting in a school cafeteria at 6:00 AM, waiting to compete in classrooms with chalkboards. It was giving “school field trip with a dress code” more than “business leaders of the future.”

Mandy and I’s roleplay went fine.
Our prompt? A beach losing guest traffic to a newer beach a few miles down the road. We had ten minutes to fix it. So we came up with a themed brochure and a kid’s scavenger hunt. Super cute. Super… not groundbreaking.

And yet — we qualified for States.
Complete surprise. 14-year-old me? Thriving.

But part of me still wondered: if DECA was such a big deal, why didn’t this feel like it?

5. The higher up you go, the crazeier it gets.

Then came States.

Imagine 7,000 high schoolers — in full suits — packed into a convention center in downtown Dallas. The lights go out. Lasers everywhere. A techno violinist plays. People are literally moshing in dress shoes.
(Yes, this actually happened.)

It was wild. And it was the first time I saw what DECA really was.

Three days of testing, competing, hotel room hangouts, spontaneous hallway dance parties, and the opening/closing sessions that genuinely made me emotional. It was high-energy, high-stakes, and high-key one of the best things I’d done in high school.

Mandy and I didn’t win at States — we weren’t really expecting to. But I walked away from that weekend knowing one thing for sure:

I was coming back.

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The DECA moment that changed everything (even if I didn’t know it yet).

So no, Mandy and I didn’t walk away from States with medals or glass or any life-changing success story. We didn’t even try that hard, if I’m being honest.

But we did walk away with something better: a feeling. A spark. That maybe — just maybe — we had found something we didn’t even realize we were looking for.

I didn’t expect to like DECA. I definitely didn’t expect to love it. But that weekend in Dallas — the suits, the chaos, the scavenger hunt presentation that was not revolutionizing tourism — it all hit different.

Not because I suddenly wanted to go into business (spoiler: still no), but because I saw what could happen when I let myself just try something. Even if I had no clue what I was doing. Even if I messed up. Even if I felt totally out of place.

Freshman-year me didn’t know what she was doing. But she showed up. She wore the blazer. She presented the scavenger hunt. And somehow… she kind of crushed it.

And that’s the moment I decided I wasn’t done with DECA. Not even close.