<p>Hey everyone! I'm currently a sophomore at a relatively big high school that's pretty competitive in a lot of stuff such as academics. I love policy debate so much mostly because I learn so much. I also love the community but I don't know if I can do it next year. At my school, policy debate is also a class so in order to actually be part of the team, I have to be in the class. </p>
<p>Part of the issue lies with my adviser, who doesn't want me taking it next year because it's perceived as a pretty big time commitment with all the weekend tournaments, and also because of the general load of my schedule. As said previously, everyone in the school's really competitive in grades and so the AP classes are relatively difficult. I'm not currently taking any AP's because the school doesn't really allow sophomores to take AP's unless I doubled up in science (one highest-level-but-not-AP-class and one AP class) and dropped some other class. I'm planning on taking four AP's next year: Lang and Comp, Spanish Lang and Culture, Calc BC, Chem, of which English is known to be the hardest AP class, and Chem and Spanish are lots of work. So given that main schedule (minus the art elective stuff), my adviser says that already is a LOT since most people only take three AP's junior year (though I do know someone who took five and got A's in all of them O.o). I'm not sure I'll be able to convince her to let me take debate even if I soo wanted to.</p>
<p>My mom also wants me to not do debate junior year and pick it back up senior year, as if taking a break of some sort. However, I feel like that's going to feel wayyy too much like quitting, and I'm sooo going to miss going to tournaments and being around everyone in the debate community. In addition, others are going to inevitably perceive this supposed "break' as me quitting, and I don't need people thinking. No one else has EVER EVER done this before, and I feel like I'm doing something wrong if I DO do this.</p>
<p>However, deep down, no matter how much I don't want to admit it, my adviser and my mom have really good points. I really need to focus on tests such as the PSAT/SAT and the ACT junior year, and I also REALLY need to improve my grades/GPA. It's not like I don't have any other extracurriculars to worry about either. I also do Science Olympiad, Math Team, DECA, and piano (and volunteering/tutoring if that counts). In addition, I'm pretty bad at debate (and I do it because I love it and I love the people and learning to debate better) and won't actually be able to succeed and go to the TOC or anything like that. Instead, I'm pretty good at math, science, and DECA, so if I focus more on those, I will achieve more awards and stuff. </p>
<p>Also, since I'm pretty bad at debate
(I haven't gone to camp yet and won't this year either because I took summer school and I am doing so again this upcoming summer... do I regret the decision? maybe? :( if I did go, I'm pretty sure I would be much more decent at debate right now but it certainly helped with scheduling classes. oh and i kinda half-quit debate last year mid-way because I had a spring season sport which is also one of the reasons I'm pretty bad at debate now. Before all that mess, I did break once and didn't do so shabby at other tournaments either tho I was nowhere near getting a speaker award of sorts because I didn't spend enough time on debate with so much other stuff going on),
skipping a year won't do much, and I can still learn stuff senior year.</p>
<p>I don't know what to do!! :'( I'm dying inside. Help?? Thank you so much for any opinions/suggestions because I feel so conflicted right now!!! And thanks for reading all this haha. :)</p>
<p>P.S. I'm so going to miss all the seniors graduating this year who are all so very awesome :)). If I DO do debate next year, I might see one or two of them as judges/coaches/etc. and thus around but the chance isn't sky rocket high. If I don't do debate next year, I'm utmost definitely not going to see them, so the detriment here isn't as huge but there still is a little. I want to take that little chance because having hope's always a good thing.</p>
Junior year IS going to be extremely busy. I just hope that it’s possible to pick debate back up senior year</p>