Right now I’m debating (ha) between whether to choose Debate or Ac Dec next year as a class. What are the pros and cons of each of them?
Thanks!
With Debate (which I am in), you develop vital public speaking, research, and critical thinking skills, all of which are very useful. You also make new friends from various schools. As for academic decathlon, I have no idea what that is.
I would choose debate. My sister did debate from 8th grade all the way to her current grade, 12th. She is extremely shy and never got involved with class discussions and such until she started debate. She definitely developed her public speaking, research, critical thinking skills with debate, like tigerman333 said, but it also made her a much more confident person as a whole because she was able to speak in public without worrying what people will say. Because of this, she also started doing spoken word poetry and it really impacted her as a person and as a scholar. Debate was very life-changing for her and I recommend anyone to try it out.
As for Academic Decathlon, I did it for one year and it was the worst thing in the world. Of course, this is my opinion, but I think it is pointless. Yes, learning is fun, but reading “resource guides” and taking tests everyday is not very “FUN” imo. It took up so much time (we had to stay afterschool extremely late and sacrifice lots of weekends) and it because the activity I hated most. It is a worthless EC unless you make it to state or even nationals. As someone in a competitive acadec district, nationals were impossible and state was difficult as well. Personally, I didn’t enjoy it at all. The only thing I gained from it was making a bunch of new friends but lets be honest, you will make new friends in debate as well.
I just realized that this is really long lol. I would recommend debate 100%
I’m in both as clubs and I can 100% say take debate. It’s far more fun and rewarding.
If you go to my school or Elco do aca deca
we always win
I did academic pentathlon/ decathlon from seventh grade to senior year of high school and was the vice president of a political debate society. I think Academic Decathlon was much more valuable in terms of teaching a variety of skill sets than my debate class. An effective decathlete not only masters interviewing and giving a speech, but also learns how various subjects fit together in a larger historical narrative.
AcDec can be quite challenging if you actually study for it, but if you are someone who would benefit from the philosophy behind it, it is immensely rewarding. Possibly because AcDec was only offered as a club at my school and not an actual class, I became extremely close with many of my teammates. Four years out of high school, I’m still good friends with four of them.