<p>Hi, everyone! I wanted everybody's opinion on this, but should I start a Science Olympiad Club or a Debate Club? I'm in Speech and really enjoy it, but I thought debate would be a bit more fun because I get to experience that "aggressive" side of public speaking. However, I also really loooove science, and I wanted to start a Science Olympiad Club too. The thing is... There's a rival school right by us, and they've repeatedly gone to nationals... I don't think anybody in my school would have nearly the amount of dedication I have to bring to go to nationals :(! Anyway, what are your experiences with this? Which is more rewarding?</p>
<p>Well. I can comment on this.
I went to SciOly Nationals in 8th grade. It was undoubtably the highlight of my academic career. However, our MS splits into multiple HSs, ruining chances of ever going again. Plus, making Nationals in HS is SOOOO much more difficult.
I’m on our school’s speech team (we don’t have a debate team because our speech team is really good, so we just focus on that as a school). It’s fun, but my loyalty lies with SciOly.
Here’s my advice: see how many people you can get to sign up to be part of a Scioly team. If it’s above 10, you’ll be able to field a full team. I say this because you’ll be able to convince some teacher to give extra credit for being on the team, which should bring in 5+ more ppl.
Else, debate it is. </p>
<p>Hmmmmm, I really like debate also, but honestly, I heard it’s a really big commitment. I also love Science Olympiad because well… I started loving science… I’ve also developed an awesome relationship with my science teacher and have the highest grade in the class (104% in ap bio… 104.8% last semester lol), so I would also looove to have him run it with me. Sadly, I’m a sophomore, and I really want to “be with him” for another year :(! So I think Science Olympiad would benefit both him and me. Then, again, our rival school has been going to nationals consecutively, so I’m not sure if that’s a good idea… Title hoggers… Gah, if only… </p>
<p>I started a Science Olympiad team this year at my school and honestly, it was really, really hard and stressful because our “coach” didn’t do anything at all. I don’t blame him because every year some senior tries to start a scioly team, gets accepted into college, and then completely ditches the team. So our “coach” thought that I would just be another one of those people (even though I’m a sophomore) and was pretty skeptical that we would even participate in the regional competition. So we made an agreement that he would only have to sign the paperwork and I would do everything else. </p>
<p>I set my bar pretty low for this year. All I wanted to do was to go to regionals with a team and medal in at least one event. And based on those expectations, our team did pretty well being a first year team without a “coach” (half of us even medaled!) But there was this one middle school team that was also a first year team and they placed 2nd at regionals and qualified for state…but they had an actual coach.</p>
<p>I guess the bottom line is that if your bio teacher and you are really serious and determined to get somewhere with scioly, definitely do it. But if your bio teacher is kinda ~meh~ about it, do speech. </p>
<p>Scioly is really rewarding. All the work, stress, frustration was worth the end result, even though it wasn’t that great. I loved being the underdog and having nothing to lose. And now our “coach” says he’ll actually do something for next year. Yay. </p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, the other team I was talking about has an actual CLASS for science olympiad, so… Yeah, haha… I think he and I will be able to coordinate it 
It’s just the problem if we’ll even go far enough to make it worthwhile, you know?</p>
<p>Science Olympiad is sooo fun! It’s not like you have to go to nationals to make the club fun and worthwhile…my team just does it for the fun of it. We don’t freak out and take it seriously and we do better than most of the teams that practice everyday. It’s a fun thing to be a part of </p>