Last weekend, the Smith Debate Society traveled across Massachusetts to attend the Boston University Novice tournament. Smith brought the biggest team, with 22 competitors and five board members who served as judges during the rounds and led the team around the Boston area.
This tournament is different from any other held during the season in that only novice debaters are allowed to compete. Though many different colleges were represented, including Amherst, Bates, Brandeis, Brown, Harvard and Yale, each competitor was relatively new to the art of debate.
I was one of those competitors, coming in with no prior experience in debate and leaving with a story of a weekend adventure.
Prior to this trip, I had never traveled without an adult chaperone. I was used to following the rules of a teacher on a school trip or relying on my parents to navigate a new city. However, when I showed up at the Peter Pan bus station a block away from campus, I realized I was in for a transformative experience.
Since our team was so large, it was impossible for us to all travel together. Most of the team departed campus in a large shuttle, but some of us had to make our way to Boston independently. I settled in for a three-hour ride with three other debaters, not sure of what would come next. We managed to navigate the subway and met up with the rest of the team shortly before the rounds began.
The tournaments Smith’s Debate Society participates in follow the rules of APDA, the American Parliamentary Debate Association. Each round consists of two pairs, one known as the government and the other as the opposition. Each side goes back and forth, giving timed speeches and drawing upon a case the government prepares. Cases can be on any topic, but many are political in nature. I argued that the phrase “Love is Love” should be abandoned by LGBTQ+ activists on the government’s side and fought against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
We were constantly thinking on our feet, trying to convince the judge that our side was right. My partner and I won two out of the four rounds we competed in — a decent achievement for novices. However, winning didn’t matter much in this competition since everyone was there to learn and have fun.
I think what defined this experience was not the number of rounds, or who, we played. It was being away from Smith. I’ve only been a college student for three weeks, so it felt strange to leave my new life and spend less than 48 hours on another adventure with new friends in a foreign place. I bonded with teammates as we slept on the floor of a Harvard apartment, shared Insomnia cookies while making debate-related puns and people-watched in Boston Common. Now that I’m back and settled in Smith, I am filled with more memories to keep as I continue learning from my first semester of college.
