High school debate has a lot to offer, but there are many unseen benefits that only the kids in speech and debate really understand. Here are 5 reasons why high school debaters do it best.

1. We think on our feet.

Thanks to debate, we are pretty much ready for whatever is thrown at us. You have to speak in front of the class? No problem. Your opponents say something outrageous? We keep it cool, calm and collected to come right back at them with a response to block their argument. Thinking fast is what we do. When it comes to Public Forum Debate and writing 4-minute rebuttal speeches on the spot, we gather all the argument we can make and find all the flaws possible. As an added benefit it comes in handy in other situations!

2. We are always up to date on the news.

If we’re being completely honest, debaters are nerds… but we’re cool nerd. A part of this is keeping up with the news. It isn’t really something we make ourselves do but it’s more of a natural habit. Twitter, news apps, talk radio, and T.V. These are the things that we find ourselves checking throughout the day and keeping up with domestic and global events. While staying up to date may not help on every debate topic it is a great habit to have.

3. When we dress up, we do it with style.

Debate tournaments are a giant mixture of teenagers all dressed up in nice clothes ready to do their event. Everyone is dressed for success. Men show up in sharp suits and ladies look like they’re ready to run a business meeting. Just because we dress nice it doesn’t mean personality doesn’t show through, whether it’s fun ties, cool statement pieces (I once saw a maroon, velvet jacket), and unique accessories (I wear a white, granite rock watch). One the low down, everyone is kind of a hot mess but at least we’re dressed for success.

4. We can function on minimal sleep, caffeine, and pizza.

In short tournaments are a giant conglomerate of teenagers running on minimal sleep, pizza, and caffeine. No matter how prepared we are for a tournament we almost always find ourselves preparing the night before. New evidence, revisions, and organizing, late nights happen. In addition to late nights are the early mornings. This combination leads to you guessed it, minimal sleep. With minimal sleep comes the counteraction of caffeine. The only tragedies that may come with caffeine are A) The tournament doesn’t sell coffee B) You run out of energy drinks or C) You crash mid round. Lastly, the energy provided by pizza. Debate tournaments almost always have pizza, and debaters have learned how to fuel ourselves off of this delicious item. With this combination, debaters are essentially more hard-core than we seem.

5. Writing papers are a breeze.

When it comes to academics, we can knock out a paper like it’s nothing. I credit this to two things: the first being that if we don’t have a topic then we can just write about a debate topic we’ve had. It’s pretty efficient for us to use these topics because the papers are basically already written, research is done, and we know that the arguments are strong. This also applies to papers that we don’t have information on. As I stated in the first point, we think on our feet, so writing an outline is no problem; paragraph layout is rock solid, and finding evidence comes with ease.