San Francisco, California - On Saturday, September 7, eight officers from The Harker School DECA traveled to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in San Francisco to attend California DECA’s Northern California DECA University. This was a one-day leadership conference devoted to equipping attendees with the skills they need to lead their DECA chapters in the coming year.

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The Harker School DECA chapter officers in attendance included:

• Monica Thukral, President
• Ariana Shulman, Vice-President
• Gaurav Kumar, Co-Director of PR
• Shannon Hong, Co-Director of PR
• Sophia Luo, Secretary/Treasurer SV DECA
• Savi Joshi, Membership Intern
• Victoria Ding, Treasurer Intern
• Annie Zhou, Written Events Intern
• Mr. Glass, Advisor

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The day began with three guest speakers from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM). These speakers gave students a glimpse into their field of business and explained how FIDM uses technology to stay at the forefront of their industry. 

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Following this presentation, the focus shifted towards leadership development. Harker DECA’s chapter officers learned what is takes to create a program of work in a presentation by Tri Leadership Resources LLC. 

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After the program of work session, our DECA chapter officers had an opportunity to develop skills that are specific to their leadership positions. The over 100 students in attendance separated into four different groups. These groups were led by a California DECA state officer and explored one of four topics: managing meetings, social media, membership recruitment, and chapter finance. 

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The day ended with a trip to AT&T Park for a Giants baseball game, where students from our DECA Chapter had the opportunity to network with chapter officers from across Northern California. This was a valuable chance for chapter officers to share what practices work best at their local chapters with each other. 

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“In addition to learning some valuable ideas on how to strengthen our chapter, this event was especially helpful for our officer team to brainstorm on ideas, bond, and have fun together. Harker DECA will be awesome this year!” said Monica Thukral, President of the Harker DECA Chapter.

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