From April 25 to April 28, 23 students from State High’s DECA program attended the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.
ICDC concludes the DECA year with competitions, celebrations, and learning experiences that cannot be found in average classes. The event consists of more than 25,000 high school students, teachers/advisors, business professionals and alumni.
Sophomore Olivia Li made history as she took first place in Integrated Marketing Campaign Product (IMCP) and became State High’s first DECA world champion.
ICDC is the top level for DECA events, as United States members must first make it through districts and then states.
Li, along with the other competitors, had to put in a lot of work to get to that level.
“I did a lot of studying, a lot of work. So basically, how my event is oriented…it is a test that I have to study for. It’s one hundred questions, multiple choice, along with a pitch deck, which is kind of like a slideshow that I pitch ahead of time. So I spent a lot of time making that, and then I also prepared for my presentation as well, which is 15 minutes,” Li said. “I’d say to get first in the world, it’s definitely a lot of work. You have to put a lot of time into it.”
Li also attested that DECA has helped her grow and has been a positive experience.
“I think you build so many connections with [DECA], you build so many great friends…and I think that even if you don’t win any places, you make so many great experiences and memories from it,” Li said.
Junior Ella Caldwell represented State High in the School-Based Enterprise (SBE) event through her work at the ROAR store.
This year’s SBE theme was selling, so Caldwell made a tri-fold for the competition.
Along with the tri-fold, Caldwell had to memorize a 10-minute speech to present in front of a judge. She was one of 750 people from across the world to compete for SBE.
Caldwell reflected on her experience with DECA and making it to ICDC, and how it could benefit students.
“This is definitely a very good experience and a good club to join. It helps you with public speaking, thinking on your feet, and just so many different life skills…it helps you a lot and grow in a way,” Caldwell said.
DECA advisor Bridget Ciolkosz helped all of the members on their journey to ICDC. She reflected on how such a large number of kids making it to nationals felt like a huge honor to the whole group.
“Our students are really lucky that our officers are so hands-on. And then the students also have to prepare for the test portion of it, and they do a lot on their own studying for [it]. And then there are some students that just have a presentation component, which I usually work with those students on that element of it,” Ciolkosz said.
ICDC offers over 60 different competitive events for high schoolers. State High covered a wide range of those events. Ciolkosz shared how, with all of those events and the 25,000 competitors from around the world, State High had four solo finalists and one group, meaning they were in the top 20 for their event.
The finalists consisted of Aidan Le and William Liu for Financial Services Team Decision Making, Yidi Zhang for Human Resource Management Series, Luke Alexander for Personal Finance Liteacy, Spencer Stevenson-Peck for Food Marketing Skills, and Li for Integrated Marketing Campaign.
“A lot of [State High’s placing] is our students are very well motivated, but I would say our officer team does a really good job of helping to motivate. And I would say a lot of other schools and advisors ask me a lot, how we have such a good qualifying number of students. And I think all it takes is that first group of students to get to that national level and then you have other students seeing students get called up on stage, and they want to be like those students,” Ciolkosz said.
State High’s DECA team spent the year working towards ICDC and exceeded the club’s expectations, setting a high bar for 2026-27.
