Castro Valley DECA club travels to San Ramon for competition

The Castro Valley DECA club recently had a competition in San Ramon and took along 60 participants to compete against schools from around the Bay Area. There were easily 300 kids at the San Ramon Marriott hotel, where the convention was held. As soon as you walked into the building, you felt the competition in the air. Every student was on their own as they tried to out do the opposing contestants. They wanted to get the special stage walk for doing an outstanding job on either their test, role play, or written report.

“When you hear your name get called, it’s a feeling like no other, all your hard work and days without sleep paid off and knowing you did something good enough to impress the judges makes you feel better about your work,” said senior Brandon Aranzamendez who took eighth place in his category.

Day one started and before the Castro Valley DECA club could even get their rooms, they had to take their test based on the section they took. The top test scorers from Castro Valley were Stephen Bray and Connor Piper, both in the top ten from all the schools based on their section.

The day after the students got to do their role plays, where they present their new business ideas to the judge. After the completion of the role play, the presentations came. Students had to present their business plans of up to 30 pages long to judges. That period of time was really agitating because the students presented days worth of endless work in 15 quick minutes. A handful of Castro Valley participants got into the top eight for their perspective section but only one group placed top three, consisting of Corissa Yee, Kyle Owyoung, and Brianna Wong.

With all the competition, excitement, and hunger left in the Castro Valley participants, they look forward to the state competition in San Diego where the competition will be better, stronger, and harder as they look to place top three in order to qualify for Nationals in Tennessee. Castro Valley DECA has a strong and positive attitude going into the state event and looks forward to the competition because “It’s nothing personal, just business.”