EDITORIAL: DECA is vital for business students
With summer vacation just a few weeks away, most students are anxious about internships or things that they can do during the break to promote a successful future for themselves. But a relatively new organization at the University is assisting students in finding opportunities that will further their success during the school year, especially if they are interested in business.
DECA is an international organization that includes both high school and college students and provides them with development activities to increase their knowledge on marketing, management and other areas of business. And with over 850,000 members worldwide, it is almost no surprise that our University has its own chapter here.
DECA Rutgers has been active at the University for two years now and has been actively working to prepare business students for real-world business experiences since its inception. This preparation has come in the form of events, conferences and even interview skills workshops. DECA Rutgers also relies heavily upon activities that can help sharpen students’ managerial skills, such as being given a prompt and only having 15 to 20 minutes to find a solution to it. These activities are done during the biweekly meetings that the organization holds, which end up averaging about 25 to 30 active members each meeting.
Rutgers is one of the 15 colleges in New Jersey that have a chapter of DECA in its school, and at its first conference as the Rutgers chapter, DECA Rutgers had the most members show up. They also won the most awards at the conference. What does this tell the University?
This sends a message that when you provide Rutgers students with opportunities to succeed, they will take them with enthusiasm. But this is not the only thing that DECA Rutgers has proved.
Rutgers Business School, both at New Brunswick and Newark, is rated among the 50 best business schools in the nation. And because the school is so exceptional and selective (with an acceptance rate of about 27 percent), it only makes sense that the students in the school should be provided with the best opportunities, and this is exactly what DECA allows the students to have.
While the Rutgers Business School does an excellent job of exposing students to important classes that will further their business career, DECA focuses on the real-life aspects of the business world. Every DECA Rutgers meeting is lead with a purpose, ranging from professional development to public speaking. Almost everything you need to learn about the professional business world and entrepreneurship can be taught through the DECA Rutgers chapter.
If there is any complaint that one can have against DECA it is that within such a large University, a lot of people do not even know that DECA Rutgers exists. And this is a shame, as the organization does so much to help business students. This is where the University can come in. By working with the organization to increase advertising and raising awareness about the group and its benefits, Rutgers can help more business students reach the goals that they want. If Rutgers already has the most attendees at DECA state conferences without a lot of exposure, imagine how many more students we would be sending by spreading the word.
It is organizations like DECA that give Rutgers and its business school the esteemed reputation that it has. By investing into a student’s present, the University is ensuring his or her successful future. And with groups like DECA in place, it is no wonder that last year, almost 97 percent of full-time MBA students were employed within 100 days of graduation.
