by Lauryn Hughes | staff writer
With some ink and paper, senior Brooklin Harris creates a watercolor piece. Harris has a dream to one day own her own business featuring watercolors, calligraphy, and baking. She has already gotten a head start by having her own business on Etsy.
“It’s on Etsy, which is a bunch of small businesses that are all on one website. So I have a little website on there, it’s called Brush and Letter, and I basically just sell calligraphy and watercolor pieces. I also sell tassel earrings, just cute little stuff like that,” Harris said.
Harris is working to achieve her dream of one day owning a business of her own.
“When I get older I want to have a business, so this was kind of a little starter business for me I guess, and it’s what I really enjoy doing, it’s what I think I’m good at,” Harris said.
Harris’s dream is bigger than just tassels and watercolors.
“My business idea for the future is a little bit different, it’s more like kind of a half bakery, half art studio kind of thing. It is continuing with the theme of kind of like art, but in the future I want it to be more like teaching others how to do it too,” Harris said.
Harris gains the skills to maintain a business through her participation in the DECA Club.
“So DECA is a business club and our club focuses on preparing students for the business world, whether that be creating your own business or entering a business that’s already there. We’ll go to competitions and present whatever our category is,” Harris said.
If you can’t make it to the DECA club meetings there is a flex class you can join to stay updated.
“It’s an extracurricular club and we meet on Monday mornings at 8:00 , and then Thursday afternoons at 4:15 or right after school. We also do flex, so if you have trouble making it to those times you can see about getting switched into flex, which is just Mr. Rubles class,” Harris said.
Being in DECA club has more benefits, especially regarding college applications.
“It does look really good on college applications, especially for business schools. If they see that you’re competitive in a business club, it will probably look better to them, and we also have scholarship opportunities. There are multiple (scholarships) you can enter for and you can just enter whatever your competition category is into the scholarships,” Harris said.
In the DECA club there are competitions to increase business skills and give an example of what business in the real world is like.
“So we go to our district competition and anybody’s welcome, it’s just here in San Antonio, the first one is. There are multiple categories that you can chose, me personally I did innovation plans which was just presenting my business plan at competition and there multiple others for other interests. And you go and you just present it to judges.In some cases it’s a role play situation, and then if you make it past district you go to state, last year [it] was in Dallas,” Harris said. “Then after that there’s internationals, and it varies what place they’re at. Competition is just a good way to practice what you’ve been doing in DECA, and also winning and advancing could also look good on college applications and potentially get you scholarships.”
Even if they fall on school days, DECA competitions will not affect any abilities to exempt final exams.
“The date itself is typically going to vary, usually the district competition is in January, right after the beak. Usually the second week of January is the district competition, state is held in February, about a month later. Then ICDC, International Career Development Conference is always the third week in April. Those dates don’t change, so sometimes you’re going to miss some school, sometimes it’s on a weekend it all depends on how those dates fall. But they have to schedule that in advance because it’s such a big conference that those dates typically stay the same,” Kevin Rubel, club sponsor, said.
Along with college applications, DECA club offers new social experiences.
“So, last year we had probably like 20 in total, 10 of them going into the competition. But this year I think we are looking at more, 30 or 40 just cause all the officers we had, now have committees,” Harris said.
There are fees that will need to be paid, but they cover most everything you would need for DECA club.
“The membership cost $40, what that covers in national and state dues which are 8 dollars each and local dues which include[s] part of the cost for the local competitions, the tee-shirt, and all the activities,” Rubel said.
