WSC: Final round
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut
Yale University, founded in 1701, is one of the finest universities in the world. Luckily, visiting it and learning about its culture was an opportunity provided to the scholars who qualified for the Global round of WSC. I was a part of a group of 6 students who qualified for this round. Correspondingly, the following blog will evince my experience at Yale.
DAY 1
8th November 2019
Firstly, after a long journey of around 20 hours, we reached New York in the evening. It was colder than Delhi, but it wasn’t as chilly as I expected it to be. After reaching, we relaxed and planned for the next day.
DAY 2
9th November 2019
The second day was really cold because of the winds. After having breakfast, we headed for the WSC opening ceremony which was quite similar to the opening ceremony in the previous two rounds - first in Delhi NCR itself and the next in Hague, Netherlands (described in my blog). After the ceremony, we had lunch at one of the universities on the Yale Campus. I was surprised to see how the university had an amazing variety of vegetables, drinks and distinct meals.
After having lunch and taking a long walk in the cold weather, we headed back to the university. There we attended a presentation on the Voynich Manuscript, which is a 500 years old manuscript that hasn’t been decrypted yet. The presentation was given by one of the people who are studying the manuscript and it was really interesting.
Consecutively, in the evening, it was time for the scavenger hunt (explanation covered in my blog). In the global round, the scavenger hunt was really fun and I was really looking forward to it.
The scavenger hunt turned out to be more fun than I expected, not only because I made new friends, but because I enjoyed a lot doing many activities with them. Overall, it was a delightful day.
DAY 3
10th November 2019
This was the day we had been preparing for months. On that day three of the four main events were scheduled. Firstly, there was the Scholar’s challenge. It is a 120 question MCQ consisting of the 6 subjects (Literature, History, Social science, Science, Special area and Art & music). However, this one was much tougher than the one we had in the previous round. Shortly after this event, collaborative writing was scheduled. In collaborative writing, we get a topic from each of the subjects, out of which each teammate has to choose a different one to write on. Then, for the first 20 minutes or so, one has to prepare and research for our text which can be a poem, essay or anything else. Consequently, we get to the writing part which is for 45 minutes. After writing our whole text, all teammates can collaborate and help make each other’s work better. My team’s texts went well. One of my teammates got a medal in collaborative writing later onwards in the award ceremony.
Afterwards, we had a long break eating lunch. The next event was the team debate. The team debate consists of two teams and an adjudicator. Both teams get the topic for the debate and the side they have to be on. After getting the topic, they get 15 minutes to prepare. Henceforth, each speaker has to come up and speak for up to 4 minutes. For us, the debate went really well as we managed to win 2 out of the 3 debates.
DAY 4
11th November 2019
This day, we had the scholar’s bowl, which was the final academic event. In the scholar’s bowl, there are MCQ questions displayed on a huge screen and each team has to select the answer on their clickers. We managed to receive multiple points by answering questions. After this last event, it was time for what the WSC crew likes to call the ‘Alpaca adoption.’ In this, each scholar gets an alpaca (a stuffed toy). The alpaca I got was coloured blue.
After we had lunch, it was time for the talent show, where scholars from all across the world display their talents. Whether it be dancing, a musical instrument or singing, there was a huge variety of talent on the stage. After enjoying watching the variety of performances, we headed back to the hotel. However, there was one final event for the day.
At roughly 9 pm was the scholar’s ball, which is a party for all the scholars to celebrate the end of all the academic events and have fun with different students from all around the world.
The ball ended at about 11 in the night. Because it was so late in the night, we slept immediately after reaching the hotel.
DAY 5
12th November 2019
On this day we got a break. Our day was especially fun because of the places we were going to visit. Firstly, we got a Boston tour. This tour included the history of Boston and all the revolutions and changes people from there went through. What made the tour interesting is that while the guide was explaining the history, we were actually touring the places that were being talked about. This consisted of monuments, graveyards, alleys, etc. After the Boston tour, we visited one of the best universities in the world, the MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology). There, an MIT student gave us a tour of the university while also telling us fun stories and facts about MIT and its culture.
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After this fun tour, we went on to tour the university about which everyone was most excited about, Harvard University. Similar to the one at MIT, we got a tour of the institute by the football captain of Harvard! One of the facts we learnt was that the library at Harvard is so large and has so many books that if you run beside each shelf, it will be equivalent to running about 2 marathons. Overall, it was a remarkable experience getting to know about these universities. Finally, we went back to the hotel and because we were so tired after the whole day, we couldn’t go to the cultural fair.
DAY 6
13th November 2019
It seemed shocking how all these days passed by so quickly. Not only was this day the final one but it was the most important one as well. Firstly, there was the award ceremony. The award ceremony consisted of prizes being given to scholars who did exceedingly well. I managed to get 40th position solo for team debate, a top 70 rank with my team and a medal in Special area in the challenge. Next was the flag ceremony, where one scholar from each country in the WSC came on to the stage with their country’s flag. It was delightful to see multiple countries’ flags all in one place with the diverse scholars on stage.
DAY 7
14th November 2019
On this day, we spent all the time we had before going to the airport by shopping and having fun. From Barnes & Nobles to different gift shops, we visited all kinds of locations on the Yale campus. I managed to purchase a lot of fun stuff like a Harmonica, a miniature Uno set etc. After having so much fun, we headed to the airport, and it was the end of the whole WSC experience. I had never thought that I could have such an enriching and entertaining experience in just a week.
All in all, this was the most diverse, enriching and amusing competition I have ever been to.
