Heart pumping excitement infused the packed Emerson lecture hall each time a motion was delivered. Oo’s, laughs, and a mixture of eagerness filled the cramped space. This atmosphere defines an aspect of the annual Harvard APDA tournament that I attended on the 6th and 7th of October, for the first time.
If you’re not aware, APDA stands for the American Parliamentary Debate Association and it is an intercollegiate debating experience in which teams largely from the East Coast area part-take in. This association is student-run and it is categorized by weekly debates at participating colleges such as Yale, Harvard, CUNY, and so on.
Before attending this trip with the CUNY Parliamentary Debate team by chance, I had no knowledge of the APDA or that it even existed, however, I have learned so much through this experience.
While observing the competition, I noticed how much more the students articulated and presented their argument as teams were getting eliminated from the competition.Their lack of filler words and rate of speaking evoked a sense of confidence and through this, I learned more about how to be an effective public speaker. What shocked me most was the fact that the teams were only given 15 minutes to both get to their assigned room to debate, and to pull their thoughts together to present it after the motion/prompt was given. I was actually quite fond of this debate style because instead of focusing on in-depth research and ‘hard facts,’ it focused more on an argumentative style and being able to handle the challenges as they come. This tournament debating style is called the American Parliamentary Debate.
After the debates were done for the day (around nine in the evening), I explored the area around Harvard University along with some other students that I became acquainted with through the trip, just to get a feel of what the area was like. It was interesting to compare how Massachusetts operated during the night, which was quite different from how it is in the city that never sleeps. Fun fact, the majority of the stores surrounding Harvard advocated for the university through merchandise and post cards. Also, instead of calling it a ‘MetroCard’ as in New York City, it is called a ‘CharlieCard’ in Massachusetts.
I encourage each and every one of you reading this blog post to step outside of your comfort zone and explore the opportunities that are present through CUNY to expand your knowledge and interests, who knows, maybe you might end up in Cambridge, Massachusetts like I did.
For more information on the APDA check out their website:
http://apdaweb.org