Students get into WSC Final Round at Yale
In a stately, antique building such as Yale’s century-old Woolsey Hall, one probably expects to find deeply insightful lectures or moving orchestra performances but recently, there was actually a rather abnormal academic tournament being held. With “Sample of My Pasta,” a YouTube spinoff of a famous BTS song playing on loudly repeat throughout the tall structure, and rows upon rows of students clutching brightly colored alpacas, World Scholar’s Cup 2019 Tournament of Champions was ready to start.
Up around April, one of the newest competitions in SMIC-I opened up for another round and the packed middle school (Junior) and high school (Senior) leagues tested their knowledge on six preassigned subjects at the World Scholar’s Cup Regional Round, Shanghai. This intense weekend spent at the Golden Apple School and the Great Theater of China was rewarded with a smattering of awards for all the SMIC students in attendance, including Chinese Track! The Global Round, held at select locations across the world, had selected Beijing for the first time among Manilla, Sydney, Durban, Astana, and the Hague. It was an inevitability that most of SMIC-I’s teams would head north for Beijing and gather with scholars from 50+ other countries in the China National Convention Center. Finally, after a week of competing and learning about other cultures, the victors were invited to the final round-The Tournament of Champions-at Yale University.
The great stage, mounted with projectors and lined with World Scholar’s Cup’s iconic alpacas, all uniquely named Jerry Courtesy of Claire Xu
With 8 teams left, the scholars returned only to face the same subjects, now with the added challenge of thousands more people. Contending with the Scholar’s Challenge, Collaborative Writing, Debate, and the Scholar’s Bowl, the difficulty had been kicked up a notch and the heat was on.
“Yale is one of the biggest campuses in the US, and we get to learn and play there. Yes, it’s really rewarding,” said Haowen Tan (9A), who ranked 95th place for Writing out of the 200 Gold awards and whose team of Aaron Huang and Joshua Zhang ranked 6th place Gold for Team Writing. “My favorite part was the Scavenger Hunt, because you can get to know people from different cultures, and play with our alpacas.”
Featured Image–The three giant alpacas of SMIC-I’s one Senior Division team: Katherine Lu (9C), Wendy Yang (9A), and Claire XuCourtesy of Wendy Yang (9A)