Val's Decade Diaries

1st, 2nd, 3rd Year Blogs

Getting Involved in the Community

I will take you through my first three years at the University of Ottawa and how the business case competition club "ACE uOttawa" impacted my academic learning.

First Year

How I got involved during my first year at the University of Ottawa online during COVID + the lifelong friendships I made from joining DECA uOttawa

Second Year

My second year I transitioned to partially in person classes and events with DECA uOttawa!

Third Year

For my third year, I took the leap and applied to be Co-President for DECA uOttawa and boy were we thrown some curveballs with a rebrand!

First Year

Getting Involved in the Community

Taking the leap and applying to be a First Year Representative on DECA uOttawa

My first year at the University of Ottawa was online due to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Needless to say, I was quite disheartened as I had planned on going into residence and meeting new friends. However, even given the virtual situation, I made it a personal priority to get involved with something so that I could expand my network and have an extra curricular that could enhance my soft skills. I wanted to specifically get involved with a business club as I was taking a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Business Technology Management. When I was searching through the Telfer uOttawa instagram, I stumbled upon DECA uOttawa, a business case competition club, hiring a first year rep! I decided, on a whim, to apply for the position.

Looking back now, I realize that the decision to apply for that first-year representative position was a defining moment. It opened doors to new friendships, unraveled countless learning opportunities, and immersed me in a dynamic community of like-minded individuals. The experiences and connections I gained through DECA uOttawa have become an indelible part of my personal and professional development, shaping my university experience in ways I could never have foreseen.

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Trying to encourage student engagement online

Being online for the first year of unviersity sucked for all students, especially the first years who have never been to university before. We were all missing out on the in person clubs fairs, 101 week, in person classes and our ability to make new friends.

My goal as first year rep was to recruit first years to DECA and make connections with other first years. Already, I had a new friend, the other first year representative, Karishma, was my partner in crime. We were both extremely motivated and came up with many ideas to engage students while online. We made a snapchat groupchat just for first years, we presented in some of the zoom classes to encourage students to join DECA, we also organized a virtual holiday bash event. This was my first taste into event planning.

Competing in my First Business Case Competition Online

This was my first time ever competing in a business case competition. I was happy and lucky to have met another new friend, Ida, who I was partners with at "Internals" which is DECA uOttawa's own competition and is run by the executive students themselves. Since I was a FYR, I did not help out with the logistics of running Internals on Microsoft Teams. I did get to compete with Ida in the partner category, Marketing Management in which we were very delighted to have won second place!

The competition was very successful and well-organized by the executive team with guest speakers and networking opportunities.

Nationals Competition

In January of 2021, I competed against many other schools across Canada who also had DECA chapters. This was another great and well-organized competition especially since it was online. We still got some goodies delivered to us (swag bag and a Nationals crew neck hoodie) and networking opportunities throughout the weekend. I competed in Marketing Management again with Ida, which we did not place but we had a great experience. It made us so excited to eventually go to Nationals in person in Toronto once the pandemic was over!

Karishma (the other first year rep) and I finished off the year with organizing the Year-End-Event for our club members where we had lots of game room (King's Cup, Scribblio) and of course Uber eats gift cards for everyone that attended! We also handed out awards for "Delegate of the Year" which Ida won, and "Executive of the Year" which the VP of Events won! All in all, the event went really well and I was so excited to apply for a position on the executive team for the year 2021-2022.

Second Year

Becoming VP of Social Events

Moving up to VP Events and organizing my first Business Case Competition with DECA

I decided to apply for VP of Social Events for my second year with DECA! I was extremely nervous about the jump, especially since I would be taking a "leader" role with directors below me. I was really happy and grateful to have had VP of Academic Events working beside me within the events portfolio so I could collaborate with her.

I was also very excited that my two friends, Karishma and Ida decided to join the executive team as well!

In the fall of 2021, Canada was still on lockdown from Covid. We still had online classes and not much going on in person. However, this did not mean all events had to be online, we just had to make sure our events met the capacity limits and other guidelines. As VP Social Events, I was tasked with organizing an in person social event that would be our "recruiting" event to encourage last minute membership sign ups. I along with my director of social events organized DECA's first Karaoke night with free entry and 1 free drink at Heart and Crown! It was a major success with lots of signups and fun times meeting new students.

Internals Competition 2021

Our first in-person Internals compeititon in 2 years lead by the VP of Academic Events with the help of the entire executive team was an extreme success. While fall of 2021 was still around covid times, myself and the other VP still decided to hold the competition in person despite the challenges of ensuring a safe environment for everyone. However, we still managed to pull of a well-run competition with guest speakers, guest judges, catered food and guest networking. Students not only got an in person case cracking competition experience but they also had great networking opportunities.

This was also my first in-person business case compeititon experience and I was happy to have competed with a team and win second place!

Nationals Competition Online again...

Unfortunately, the Nationals competition was online again. I was excited to go to Toronto for the in-person compeititon but Covid threw that plan sideways. I would be remiss to say though we won Chapter of the Year amongst all the canadian schools in the DECA organization! We were so proud of this award for our Chapter as the entire executive team worked really hard throughout the year to organize in person events for our club members!

Club of the Year and DECA's Year-End-Event!

Every year, our school council hosts an end of year gala for all the executives of clubs within the Telfer School of Management. At the gala, DECA won Club of the Year! A huge accomplishment for our relatively small club compared to some other clubs. This year for DECA was just filled with awards!

It is always tradition that our club host a year end event in honour of our club members and executives for a successful year and to celebrate! We hosted our year end event at the Three Brewer's on Sparks Street in Ottawa where we had dinner and drinks. We also handed out awards to executives and club members that really shined throughout the year.

Third Year

Becoming Co-President

After some convincing from the 2021-2022 Co-Presidents I decided to apply for Co-President. This was the BEST decision I have ever made for myself! I always use my experience as co-president to my advantage in interviews and in my day-to-day life. I gained invaluable leadership and management skills, having lead an executive team of 18 students and an entire delegation of 50+ students. I was thrilled to have Jasmine as my Co-President as she had a lot of experience with DECA, having been on the club since her first year! I myself had lots of experience with the events so we made a great team to lead DECA for the 2022-2023 year.

Thrown a Curveball

Jas and I had been doing a great job setting ourselves up for success in the fall when the craziness for our club usually begins. We were having meetings with every executive to discuss their portfolios goals and responsibilities, we were organizing a summer team bonding retreat and planning ahead for our recruitment plan, our Annual General Meeting, and our Internals Compeition for the fall 2022. Half way though summer, the DECA Organization informed us that we were going to have to rebrand our entire club to ACE. This was a huge surprise and Jas and I panicked. After several meetings with different portfolios on our exec team, we came up with an action plan for the rebrand.

Rebrand Plan

This was the most challenging and time consuming portion of my time as co-president on DECA and now ACE. It really tested our ability to problem solve and work under pressure. Our action plan included:

Designing a brand new logo in collaboration with Marketing
Putting together a marketing campaign for the rebrand
Collaborating wit IT for changing our email domain, our entire website branding and ensuring our name was updated on every platform
Working with Finance to change our bank account company name, cheques and creating a rebrand budget for our school funding proposal
Working with Marketing to create and order brand new marketing materials for our clubs fair (Banners, stickers, lanyards etc).
Getting rid of ALL our old DECA merchandise at the clubs fair and still being able to let students know we are still DECA, just under a new name.

Our rebrand plan was very successful, we were one of the only chapters among all the canadian univeristies who rebranded the fastest in terms of rebranding our social media, our marketing materials and getting the new name out there! Below are some pictures of our new marketing materials. We still kept some DECA banners on display so students would recognize us.

AGM and Karaoke Night

This year we had our AGM held in person for the first time in 2 years (we held it online the two years before due to covid and late planning). It was a great turnout and we provided pizza and a DECA merch giveaway. The main goal of the Annual General Meeting is to educate interested students on what a business case competition is, the categories ACE uOttawa offers and the Nationals competition that takes place in Toronto.

Our karaoke recruitment event was held at Pub 101 in Byward Market instead of Heart and Crown. We got the whole second floor to ourselves and were also able to provide free drink tickets to the first 30 students who signed up! It was another great hit and it looks like it will always be our fun recruitment event for the years to come!

Invitationals Competition 2022

With the rebrand, we also had to rename our "Internals" competition to Invitationals which I personally liked better anyway so it was no big deal! I was so grateful I had helped plan the Internals compeititon the year before because this made planning Invitationals that much less stressful and easier. I spent a lot of time in the ACE office prepping for the event. Below are some pictures of the planning I did!

The competition was a success again and with our new name as well! We provided students a great simulation of what Nationals in Toronto would be like and we got amazing feedback from the students and judges on the very well written cases from our academics team! We also had a business networking event in the afternoon which provided students opportunities to talk and connect with professionals from both private and public companies.

Nationals Competition in Toronto 2023

After having the past two years nationals competition online, I finally got to experience our first in-person Nationals as a Co-President of my chapter! It was an amazing experience to network with other unviersities across Ontario and spend the weekend in downtown Toronto!

The whole competition was very well organized from the ACE Canada Board which I could not even begin to imagine the hard work they had to put in for it! Jas and I still gave a helping hand with ensuring our members had hotel rooms, paid for their ticket to the competition (which included all our meals for the weeknd + hotel room- it was a great deal!) and transportation from Ottawa to Toronto. I unfortunately did not place but 13 of our club members placed in the categories they competed in out of 300 participants! We were so proud and overall had an amazing weekend!

Year End Event and Ending my Time at ACE uOttawa

The year end event was held at a quaint Italian restaurant in Byward Market called Bistro Ristoro, the owner was very accomodating to our group and let us take the whole restaurant for our event! We had delicious pizza, wine, and great decor set up. Jasmine and I gave a speech to say thank you and present awards. It was a bitter sweet moment for sure!

Saying Goodbye

What a crazy and amazing three years being involved with ACE. I do not regret one second of my time and I highly urge anyone who is at university or college and in any program, GET INVOLVED!

I cannot express how much this experience elevated my time at university and helped me grow into the person I am today. I made lifelong memories and friends, gained invaluable skills and brought myself opportunities that otherwise would not have come to me.

Check out ACE uOttawa's socials below!