Members of the HHS Speech and Debate Club attended a competition at Stanford University Feb. 9-11. 17 students participated in the competition and many of them placed extremely well, club member and junior Govind Menon said.
The Stanford Invitational is the largest and one of the most competitive tournaments that the club will attend this year, club president and junior Noah Thurm said.
“Stanford is our biggest tournament of the year, with 283 schools from 28 states and 6 countries competing,” Thurm said.
Thurm and his partner, junior Eric Cheng, participated in the Parliamentary event. They went through three elimination rounds, and made it to Octafinals, the round before quarter finals.
There were two different types of debate: Parliamentary, which is a partner event with a tight 20 minute preparation period and Lincoln-Douglas debate, which is a solo event that involves a 10-15 page case, Menon said.
“The best way to practice debate, in my opinion, is to actually debate with others and gain knowledge from opponents,” Menon said.
Menon and his partner junior Valerie Hu placed in quarterfinals for the Parliamentary event, placing in top eight out of 131 teams.
“I became a better speaker that weekend, and developed stronger opinions about certain issues such as the government shutdowns and debt ceiling, standardized testing, and public versus private prisons,” Hu said.
