Last month, the District Academic UIL competitions were held at Cy Woods, and there were many students competing from Langham. There were mixed emotions among competitors about the whole experience, feelings of excitement, anxiety, and relief.
“I did news writing, feature writing, headline writing, and copy editing,” senior Hailey Vo said. “So for the events we just go into a computer lab full of people that you’re competing against and we’re given our prompts, and then we have either 45 or 30 minutes or one hour to write a story, it depends on what event you do.”
Vo got 1st in news and feature, and 4th in headline writing and 6th in copy editing. Even though she did well, she thinks she is not as good as she used to be. She believes other schools like Waller “come more competitive throughout the years”.
“I did editorial writing, feature writing, and ready writing.” Junior Laine Yates said.
Yates placed 1st in editorial writing and 6th in ready writing. Although there were many writers at Cy Woods, some students were not there to write, but to apply math skills. Math is one of the hardest subjects among many students, so it was definitely a challenge.
“I was at Cy Woods doing math. The problems were mostly calculus but also some calculator applications,” sophomore Minh Huynh said. “They were all on paper and graded based on how much we got right.”
Huynh describes his experience as hard and made him lose confidence. Some students like that it’s over. Yates believes relief is the right word, because the “anxiety of competition is just gone, whether you place or not”.
“I don’t think UIL makes me as anxious as other stuff like debate,” Yates said. “Probably because I don’t have to do public speaking.”
The winners of the events were announced at different times, depending on when the judges organized for each event submitted their results in.
“This year it was on this screen in the cafeteria,” Vo said. “Someone, like a volunteer, will come out and just announce the names and they’ll give out the medals to those who placed in the cafeteria.”
Some students are really good at the subject they decided to do and had a high chance of winning, but feel like they lost that spark coming in due to being under pressure.
“I came in with confidence and lost that confidence,” Huynh said. “I was really nervous because the problems were really hard and that’s how I lost all my confidence. I didn’t place, and lost to some kid from Cy Woods.”
Huynh feels upset because he feels like his practice wasn’t enough, but feels there is an opportunity to improve. Both Vo and Yates think that the past year was more exciting for them, Yates saying it was more exciting because they had won State and Vo saying this year was more hard for her, saying that “senioritis was starting to hit”.
Overall, UIL can be a fun experience but very stressful, because it requires a huge devotion of time and immense practice. But, even if students didn’t win, they know they can still take something away from experiencing it to better themselves.
Langham Creek’s District results are as followed:
1st in Editorial Writing- Laine Yates
2nd in Editorial Writing- Gabrielle Wakefield
6th in Copy Editing- Hailey Vo
1st in Feature Writing- Hailey Vo
4th in Headline Writing- Hailey Vo
1st in News Writing- Hailey Vo
6th in Persuasive Speaking- Ava Owens
2nd in Ready Writing- Nadia Shelsteder
3rd in Ready Writing- Hayden Smith
6th in Ready Writing- Laine Yates
