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Best Business Prep for High School Students?

October 18, 2006

For me it was policy debate. I got to travel around the country, meet smart people and argue with them. The summer after my junior year of high school I went to the University of Vermont to study debate under Alfred “Tuna” Snider. I could have gone to Baylor or another school to study in their programs, but if you are looking for unique, off-the-wall and winning strategies Tuna is your man - he wrote the book on debate. And he has a blog - the Global Debate Blog! Oh, and the gyros at UVM are great!

Why policy debate? Each year you spent the summer writing a ‘business plan’ to support your point - by the first debate tournament your plan was ‘perfect’. Then team after team would tear your plan apart. Win or lose you would spend the next week reworking your plan, changing it up, fixing it, making it more perfect. The next week your opponents (some new, some old) would find new weaknesses in your plan. This would go on week after week all year long. Wow! Where else can you get this sort of practice dealing with this sort of intellectual pressure?

You have to be creative, you must think on your feet - did I mention that the AVERAGE speed for delivery on the national circuit is 6-8 words per second (350-400 words per minute). Don’t believe me? Check it out here , here and here. Not only do you have to hear and comprend a person talking ‘crazy fast’ you need to take notes ~ something we called “flowing” ~ we would create flows for each point or argument made by each team.

Did I mention that each judge might have a different paradigm (or combination of paradigms) for deciding the burdens of each team? Not only do you have to know your case and that of your opponent, you have to understand your judge. Some judges would walk into a round and indicate they judged based on one or more of these common paradigms: stock issues, policymaker, tabula rasa, games player, or speaking skills. No problem? Well what if you have three judges or five with different paradigms? It happened ALL of the time! It is just like real life - it is just like business - it is just like raising money. I owe a bunch to debate and great coaches like Tuna!

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog 

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