When a group of Highline students went to Baltimore, Md., they were strictly business.

Highline’s DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) team competed in nationals and left as finalists, with one student placing second.

Highline’s Business Club had four students – Najib Yasin, Anh Luu, Nigel Herbert, and Samuel Sullivan – who competed successfully at the DECA event in April.

DECA is an organization that helps students who want to further their leadership. Highline professor Shawna Freeman Lane, who coached the students, explained that DECA helps further “skills in business, marketing, finance, accounting, hospitality, and management.”

DECA’s national competition put Highline’s students to the test. 

“The biggest difference obviously being that it was in person and much larger,” Sullivan said.

“The national competition was unlike the local and state competitions in that it was our first in-person competition, and we were all nervous because we didn’t know what to expect,” Yasin said.

The team was nervous the first time around. 

“Because this was our first year competing and our team was brand new, we were all completely unfamiliar with what to do in these competitions,” Yasin said.

“We didn’t place first right away, in fact, we were probably close to last place,” he said. “However, competing for the first couple of times gave us a sense of what to anticipate moving forward.”

As local and state competitions continued, most of the four students placed first and all of them placed in the top five, which qualified them for nationals.

The first competitions they did all had the same participants, but as they went to nationals they competed with colleges around the country and world, with one school from England. 

“All told, the conference had about 2,000 attendees. This attendance was divided among all of the different events, working out to be 30 students per event,” Sullivan said.

With many students competing, they had two rounds for their case study competitions. 

“The first round was preliminary (basically a qualifying round),” he said. “The next day was the ‘final’ competition for each event.”

For one case study, each attendee is given a hypothetical scenario, and then are given 30 minutes to create an idea of what to do in the situation. They then presented their findings to a panel of one or two judges.

The students competed in multiple categories: Anh Luu and Najib Yasin in international marketing; Sam Sullivan in financial accounting; and Nigel Herbert in corporate finance.

At the end of the day, three of our students were finalists, and Sullivan took second place in his category.

The students expressed their gratitude to their teammates and Freeman Lane for this opportunity. 

“Looking back on all we’ve accomplished this year, none of it would have been possible without our coach Shawna Freeman Lane,” Yasin said. “A lot of credit also goes to my partner and Business Club President Anh Luu, who assembled the team and served as the glue that held us together.”

“Beyond the competitions, it was an incredible experience in terms of bonding, meeting other business students from around the country, and developing confidence in presentation and networking skills,” Sullivan added.