After a successful first semester, the Debate team is welcoming in the new year with many accomplishments under their belt including a national bid for one of their very own. Senior Jyothika Rajagopalan gained one of the two needed bids to advance to nationals this upcoming May. 

“It has been a long semester, but the team has worked extremely hard this year and you can see that in all that they do,” Debate coach Eric Beane said. 

Gaining a national bid means dedicating time and effort to researching topics, memorizing speeches, attending camp over the summer, researching possible attacks, and writing speeches and cases, and through it all, the team has persisted. 

“It takes a lot of work and time practicing and working with my peers,” Senior Debate Team Member Jyothika Rajagopalan said. “But finally getting the first national bid needed made all of my effort worth it.” 

While Nationals is approaching quickly, the team still has chances to gain the final bids needed to support their attendance to this highly selective event. The team will be attending local tournaments as well as traveling to UC Berkeley this spring for a chance at grabbing these bids.  

“There are only certain tournaments we can gain these bids at, so when we attend them every point counts,”  Mr. Beane said. “This spring one of our bigger tournaments is at UC Berkeley, so we will fly out and compete against nationally ranked teams.” 

As most tend to think of debate in the traditional sense, what the extracurricular entails is much more than that. With lots of categories to participate in, students are able to partake in various amounts of competitions, while persuading judges, memorizing scripts, and pouring hours of grueling work into perfecting every little thing in order to secure a victory. 

“I believe that we are more than capable of walking away with more national bids from the upcoming meets,” Mr. Beane said. “This season has treated us well and I think it’ll continue to do so.”