Hi, I’m currently a 9th grader, and I’ve done 3 years of debate in middle school. I used to hate it, but it’s grown to be tolerable. However, the new High school debate formats are totally different and my first tournament is next week. I’m so nervous and I feel like I won’t do well at all!
Also, it takes forever to write and prepare a case (I’m almost done with the opening only)… But I know that if I quit debate now, my partner will hate me since I was the one that dragged him into it (we debated on the same team last year). The old debate coach apparently quit/retired? last year, so now we just have a teacher preside over the class. Not many people show up each week, it’s just me, my partner, and 1 other person who frequently show up…
It looks good for college, but I do have other EC’s.
EC list:
volunteering at language cafe (& library over the summer)
my paid job and I plan to get an internship this summer
key club (plan to keep this)
student council (idk if I want to stay in bc I probably won’t be voted to President or any board positions?)
assortment of music related things: allstate, gt band, other groups
ballet (plan to drop next year bc I’m not good and the teacher is extremely mean to me)
piano for 7 years and continuing
debate??
I think without debate, my list looks a bit like everyone else’s, and I don’t know what I should do… Please help!
Note: I don’t actually care about winning, so that’s not a problem. I just don’t want to embarrass myself in front of people, esp my partner, during crossfire and speeches. ex: What if my speech doesn’t go to the required time? and I don’t really like debate now, but I have quit a lot of things