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Engaging in the conference’s meet and greet with district officer candidates, Arnav Maskey ’26 eagerly explains his aims for the upcoming year if elected. At the end of the conference, Maskey was voted the new vice president for the district.
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Intently focused on their computer, Krupal Yarram ’28 and Navaneeth Yarram ’26 review last-minute touch ups to their presentation. The two partners participated in the Integrated Marketing Campaign – Product event, which allowed them to have a prepared visual aid to supplement their oral presentation to the judge.
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Heading to eat lunch, seniors Anchal Yadav and Rutu Ruparel enjoy their walk together after completing respective events. The front of the campus not only hosted numerous food trucks for students to pick their meals from, but included lots of outdoor seating for competitors to relax after their event.
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Spending their downtime outside, seniors Cheyenne Wang and Talia Philip enjoy the sunshine as they converse. Many students opted to stay outside during the free time due to the sunny weather and open space.
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Huddle around their digital camera, juniors Anya Gupta, Divyani Behera, Ahanaa Satyanarayanan, Greeshmi Mohanty, and Naina Asuthker scroll through their photos. Large DECA-themed backdrops were arranged so that students could pose for photos with their friends and teammates.
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Awaiting the commencement of the awards ceremony after a long day, juniors Chandrika Ghosh, Anika Aslesh, and Dhiya Balajee sit together in the Westwood section of the gym. After the completion of events, students still had hours of wait time during which final results were being compiled and processed.
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Individually focusing on their work, juniors Sivani Thallam, Lahari Gadi, and Nishi Mukkara study in one of the open hallway spaces on campus. Students were prompted to use their downtime wisely by bringing homework to complete during the hours after their event.
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Practicing his presentation, Abraham Wilson Kunnan ’25 holds up his visual aid as he points to the section he’s covering. Many competitors that had written events brought physical presentations with them whether it was a slide deck online or a display board.
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Enjoying their conversation, juniors Betul Ozgen and Nitya Dani talk on the floor of the gym. The conference brought together numerous schools across the region and allowed for students to network and meet old friends.
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Clicking the photo, Josie Sun ’26 zooms in on Samhita Nagarakanti ’26 as she poses with the DECA hand sign. Many competitors enjoyed having fun on the McNeil campus after their respective events.
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Hugging after a positive event experience, juniors Emma Rincon and Oprah Wei comfort each other after they arrive back in the gym after competing. The big gym acted as a holding area for all RRISD schools, and was where many students spent their time after competition.
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Over 500 Distributive Education Careers of America (DECA) members headed to McNeil High School to put their business skills to test on Saturday, Jan. 11 at the District Career Development Conference. Competing in a series of role plays, presentations, and written events, 257 students qualified to the next level, DECA State — making Westwood the school with the most state qualifiers in the entire district.
With a competitive season full of unprecedented changes, such as budget cuts and McNeil being a new location for Districts, members were pushed to adjust to a different structure of the conference.
“We didn’t get to experience those early, tight-knit mornings on the buses [because] we had to drive ourselves,” Shuyu Lai ’25 said. “But at the end of the day, [my partners and I] went into a room and presented to a judge like normal.”
Representing Warrior DECA, Arnav Maskey ’26 was elected to serve as one of the District 5 Vice Presidents. After undergoing an arduous election process including an interview, officer exam, and a final speech to voting delegates, Maskey will now lead over 3000 members across the city.
“My goal [as a district officer] is to add more value and capabilities to DECA, allowing more members to experience this organization in Austin,” Maskey said.
The following students will be heading to the State Career Development Conference in Dallas, TX from March 6-8:
Apparel and Accessories Marketing Series: Nitya Dani ‘26, Nithin Shankara ‘26, Sai Anumakonda ‘27, Avery Chen ‘26
Accounting Applications Series: Vinay Reddy ‘25, Victor Lehr ‘26, Adarsh Rajesh ‘25, Roger Peng ‘26, Rafay Chaudhry ‘25, Ryan Lee ‘25
Business Finance Series: Isha Gokhale ‘26, Savya Bhat ‘26, Nischal Kotamraju ‘27, Jai Shenoy ‘27, Aattoja Das ‘28, Tarun Kallur ‘25, Darren Han ‘27, Vishan Lakhia ‘27
Business Law and Ethics Team Decision Making: Loy, Bhowmick ‘25, Neev Gupta ‘25, Brijnandan Saranu ‘27, Joshua Boersema ‘27, Haoxin Wang ‘26, Rupal Jain ‘27, Aman Dave ‘27, Hanish Mamidi ‘27, Raina Nasta ‘28, Vishwa Parakkuth ‘28
Buying and Merchandising Operations Research: Riti Meeniga ‘25, Anchal Yadav ‘25, Yan Rong ‘25, Shraddha Sule ‘25, Preethi Ram ‘25, Hannah Mary Vinesh ‘25
Business Services Operations Research: Aiden Wen ‘26, Liam Beekman ‘27, Nicholas Ledesma ‘27, Aaron Yoo ‘27, Anandiganga Raj ‘27, Sarah Yang ‘27, Isabelle Call ‘28, Sailee Chitari ‘28, Preeya Panwalker ‘28
Business Services Marketing Series: Arnav Maskey ‘26, Aayush Kumar ‘25, Roshan Paul ‘25
Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making: Daniel Nam ‘25, Suchir Kumar ‘25, Sahana Jelakara ‘28, Reesha Malpani ‘28
Franchise Business Plan: Romita Sur ‘27, Allison Zhuang ‘27, Rounav Sur ‘27, Remy Simpson ‘25, Lily Yang ‘25, Aryan Bandi ‘25
Independent Business Plan: Michelle Li ‘26, Eileen Wu ‘26
Innovation Plan: Naithruv Kashyap ‘25, Vedanth Kashyap ‘27, Adam Menezes ‘25, Mit Vadsaria ‘25, Rayyan Maredia ‘25, Aalim Prasla ‘26, Lakshay Batra ‘26, Anish Bhat ‘25, Srirang Girish ‘26, Om Kalyani ‘26, Rohit Pochugari ‘26, Jiho Lee ‘26, Asna Kadiwal ‘26, Sofia Finkbeiner ‘26
Entrepreneurship Series: Tiffany Gao ‘27, Vishnu Mahadasu ‘26, Vedant Desai ‘26, Guy Kahler ‘25
Start-Up Business Plan: Shrey Birmiwal ‘25, Dhiyaan Nirmal ‘25, Shaurya Pathania ‘25, Anika Aslesh ‘26, Sanjana Aslesh ‘26, Dhiya Balajee ‘26
Entrepreneurship Team Decision Making: Rutu Ruparel ‘25, Mishree Narasaiah ‘25, Iba Haider ‘25, Violet Hewett ‘25, John Chubick ‘25, Zachary Stenglein ‘25, Dhruv Ray ‘25, Paul Tutuc ‘25, Erin Shin ‘28, Julianne Wu ‘28
Financial Consulting: Saisha Siram ‘26, Sahiti Oruganti ‘25, Arihant Sen ‘25
Food Marketing Series: Arnesh Chatterjee ‘26, Mahathi Harith ‘25
Financial Services Team Decision Making: Shubhankar Deshpande ‘27, Darryl Tang ‘27, Aarav Karumanchi ‘28, William Du ‘28
Hotel and Lodging Management Series: Ishaan Sampat ‘27, Josephine Sun ‘26, Medha Katragadda ‘25, Arnav Chinnappareddy ‘26, Alexis Correia ‘26, Krish Shenoy ‘27
Human Resources Management Series: Iris Wang ‘26, Iris Chen ‘26, Jeremy Yang ‘26, Viraj Gadiya ‘26, Betul Ozgen ‘26, Vaishnavi Dhurjati ‘25
Hospitality Services Team Decision Making: Roshni Muthuswamy ‘27, Rafael Longoria ‘27, Reett Aulakh ‘28, Aanya Pathak ‘28
Hospitality & Tourism Operations Research: Shrishti Mahajan ‘25, Shivani Kondubhatla ‘25, Yujie Zhang ‘25
Hospitality & Tourism Professional Selling: Soojin Ahn ‘26
International Business Plan: Tanvi Kadiri ‘25, Phylicia Ren ‘25, Joshua Shen ‘27, Haein Jung ‘27, Sahil Jain ‘27, Vandya Agarwal ‘28
Integrated Marketing Campaign-Product: Shivali Sahu ‘26, Naina Asuthker ‘26, Anya Gupta ‘26, Sudeep Tatineni ‘26, Navaneeth Yarram ‘26, Elena Xiao ‘27, Emily Xue ‘27
Integrated Marketing Campaign-Service: Avishka Boina ‘26, Aarya Kale ‘26, Nandini Somarapu ‘25, Lahari Gadi ‘26, Satyanandana Thallam ‘26, Prisha Mohan ‘25, Saanika Parikh ‘26, Ahanaa Satyanarayanan ‘26, Pranavi Yadiki ‘26, Parmida Jamali ‘26, Sophia Ng ‘26
Marketing Communications Series: Aarush Upadhya ‘26, Arya Ramaiah ‘26, Vishnu Guntakala ‘27, Divyani Behera ‘26
Marketing Management Team Decision Making: Romir Jain ‘25, James Li, ‘25 Samhita Nagarakanti ‘26, Nishita Mukkara ‘26, Byron Schneider ‘27, Jingbin Tan ‘27
Principles of Business Management and Administration: Kyla Cretencio ‘28, Raadhika Singh ‘28, Arsh Babwani ‘25, Apple Ma ‘28, Mia Rhie ‘28, Prajwal Akula ‘25
Principles of Entrepreneurship: Jacob Dubrow ‘25, Ava Stidvent ‘28
Personal Financial Literacy: Arjun Kurane ‘26
Principles of Finance: Nithin Reddy Vemula ‘28, Catherine Zheng ‘28, Nihal Grandhi ‘28, Aarav Singh ‘26, Nathaniel Horton ‘27
Principles of Hospitality & Tourism: Akshara Reddy ‘28, Kedaar Jayagopal ‘28
Business Solutions Project: Sriya Chakravarthy ‘27, Yonnie Yang ‘27, Emma Rincon ‘26, Satchi Patki ‘26, Yanqing Hua ‘28, Haolang Liu ‘28, Aarav Kumar ‘26
Community Awareness Project: Parisha Acharya ‘27, Emily Rincon ‘26, Sheerali Talati ‘27
Career Development Project: Chloe Oakley ‘25, Isabella Shi ‘25, Dawoon Jung ‘25, Aryan Sehgal ‘26, Meera Iyengar ‘26, Xinyi Lai ‘26, Reva Chandane ‘26, Aarvin Hirode ‘25, Arjun Bhardwaj ‘25, Samarth Margasahayam ‘25
Community Giving Project: Lucinda McWilliams ‘28, Ashka Rajbhandari ‘28
Financial Literacy Project: Krish Arora ‘25, Talia Philip ‘25, Cheyenne Wang ‘25, Sai Surapaneni ‘25, Saanvi Devpura ‘27, Pakhi Rai ‘25
Principles of Marketing: Maya Alas ‘27, Chandrika Ghosh ‘26, Mia Shetty ‘28, Kaan Danisik ‘28
Sales Project: Rishitha Balla ‘25
Professional Selling: Uma Sthanu ‘26, Diya Shakkottai ‘27, Aarohi Bhattacharya ‘25, Nav Parikh ‘28
Quick Serve Restaurant Management Series: Jatin Aggarwal ‘26
Restaurant and Food Service Management Series: Prajna Parajuli ‘26
Retail Merchandising Series: Arunachalam Arunachalam ‘27, Sravya Akella ‘26
Sports and Entertainment Marketing Series: Ayan Nagulapally ‘26, Alisha Shireen ‘26, Lasyasri Mutluru ‘25, Varun Aditya Nanduri ‘26
Sports and Entertainment Marketing Operations Research: Sophie Liu ‘25, Shuyu Lai ‘25,
Camila Carrillo ‘25, Benjamin Li ‘25, Ian Shone ‘25, Andrew Zhang ‘25, Rachana Akkineni ‘26,
Alexandra Oancea ‘27, Maya Rajan ‘28, Aditya Bhadra ‘28, Ishaan Sagar ‘28
Sports and Entertainment Marketing Team Decision Making: Prince Kumar ‘25, Sidhant Sen ‘25, Audrey Savoie ‘26, Ojasvi Chourasia ‘26, Austin Gu ‘27, Marshall Sjariffudin ‘27, Alonzo Estrada ‘25, Luca Suliin ‘25
Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making: Shruthi Srikanth ‘25, Marlene Luo ‘25, Shrika Prakash ‘26, Samhita Guntakala ‘26, Siddhanth Ramachandran ‘26, Aayush Vishnoi ‘26, Helen Zhang ‘26, William Zhang ‘26, Nirvik Pande ‘25, Akaash Reddy ‘25, Riya Chauhan ‘25, Anella Mason ‘25, Shiven Makkar ‘27, Ali Aslam ‘27, Suhan Venkat ‘27, Varun Sanghavi ‘27, Tisya Dave ‘27, Jordyn Choe ‘27
