<p>Does UCLA have a parli debate team? If so, is it nationally competitive/active? I competed in LD debate for 4 years and I'm really interested in continuing debate in college. If anyone has any information, I would much appreciate it.</p>
<p>I checked it out beginning of the year and stupidly decided not to do it cause I thought I didn’t have enough time. They seem to travel a lot and are quite nationally competitive.</p>
<p>What school did you do LD at?</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply! I’ll PM it to you.</p>
<p>I’m on the debate team. You should definitely send me a PM if you’re interested.</p>
<p>I did debate one year (my Junior year) in high school and I really liked it but then I moved schools so I didn’t continue with it. I was good but because I wasn’t in it for too long I never became amazing. Is there room for relative novices on the team?</p>
<p>Novices are certainly welcome to join, although the season is over so you won’t be able to do so until fall quarter next year. </p>
<p>If you consistently participate in practices and show a sustained commitment to improving, you will (at a minimum) be able to attend local tournaments in Socal, which tend to form the bulk of our schedule due to budget constraints. There are no tryouts; we simply ask that you not waste our time if it is clear you are not serious about debate. If you demonstrate success you will travel. While all members of our travel squad this year had significant high school debate experience (policy, LD, etc.), over half of them are graduating, so there will definitely be more opportunities for younger debaters to attend a few invitationals plus the national championship.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that debate is not your average EC…do not get yourself into it thinking that you can treat it as an hour-a-week club. Success requires a major commitment of time and energy, and yes, that means you will be giving up a lot of your weekends at tournaments. Debate has its own unique culture and community, and if you put forth a serious effort to get involved you can definitely meet a lot of cool people in the process.</p>
<p>Is there any possibility of an emerging policy debate team at UCLA? i’d really love to debate for UCLA on the Policy circuit. Quite frankly, i’m surprised they don’t already have a Policy team.</p>
<p>We simply don’t have the funding, the coaching, or the card-cutters needed to compete in NDT/CEDA. I did four years of policy in high school, and trust me, I would jump at the chance to do it, but the resources aren’t there.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to give parli a try. On the national circuit NPTE-style parli is really “policy lite” - speed, the K, theory, etc. are all pretty much the norm. Obviously it’s a meager substitute for policy, since it’s much less time/work-intensive, and the competition is inferior, but you’ll still be in your element. </p>
<p>Send me a PM if you’re even remotely interested or curious. </p>
<p>That said, if you are deadset on doing college policy, you can always try to compete independently without school support if you can find a partner. From past experience D1 would be very accommodating (waiving fees, finding you floor space to crash on, etc.), but unless you were a TOC qualifier in high school it’s unlikely you would be particularly successful without the resources that most schools have.</p>
<p>I see. Has there been any previous attempts to generate funding for a possible policy team? Based on what several people have told me, it seems as if the key component that is missing is organization(and by that i mean a student who is willing to take the initiative to talk to the right people and make the right calls and talk to the right students to organize a collaborative effort to fund a policy team). </p>
<p>I’ve been told once before to give parli a try but i’ve never actually seen the activity done nor do i know how its structured but based on the description you’ve given me it seems like a lay version of policy. </p>
<p>I’ve never heard of competing independently and i don’t think I’d be able to on the count of no connections and what not. </p>
<p>Alrighty, i will definitely PM you with questions. I take it you are on the UCLA Parli team?</p>