WSC: Global round blog | Prodigies and Pathfi

WSC: Global round

Hague, Netherlands

This blog captures my experience in WSC (World Scholar’s Cup) participation. WSC is an international team academic program consisting of debates, MCQ (Multiple Choice Question) papers, writing etc. based on a syllabus which changes every year. This blog exhibits the journey of the second round of WSC, also known as the global round, which was held in Hague, Netherlands.

DAY 1

20th July 2019

I had to wake up quite early since the flight was in the morning itself. I reached the airport and met my friends soon enough. After going through multiple long queues, we boarded the flight.

About four hours later, the flight landed in Dubai, where we took several snacks for ourselves and fulfilled our wants. The next flight (Dubai to Amsterdam) was 8 hours long. The fun part about both these flights was that we had sunlight all the time, because of the time zones we were encountering. When we landed, I was shocked to know that the time was 9 pm, and the sun was still in the sky, shining as it does in the evening.

I was awake for more than 20 hours, yet I hadn’t realized that until I reached the hotel after which I started feeling really tired. I and all the other 11 children who were with me on the trip came to my room, and we ate dinner that our teachers had ordered.

DAY 2

21st July 2019

The second day was the opening ceremony. We woke up early, had breakfast and left for the university. The hall in the university was quite expansive and appealing.

After everyone settled down, the show began. The first performance was delivered by two people who did crazy stunts with just one chair! Everyone had a lot of fun watching them. After the show, Daniel Berdichevsky (the former CEO of the World Scholar’s Cup) along with 3 other members from the WSC staff addressed the audience (that consisted of scholars and their mentors from all around the world) in a fun manner. The keynote speaker was Alex Dang, a brilliant slam poet who addressed the audience as well, performing many slam poems expressively.

Following that was lunch including delicious food items. The next event was something we all were curious and excited about at the same time: The Scavenger hunt. It is an activity with many teams named after a country or a fictional place(like Hogwarts or Camp Half-blood). Each team had approximately 15 people, and every team member from different nationalities and we were supposed to visit a zoo, to perform a lot of fun activities as per a given task sheet. I was part of a team named France.

While we were doing all the fun activities and were getting to know each other, I met Alex Dang in the zoo personally and was lucky enough to get a photo with him!

After the scavenger hunt, we departed back to our hotels. We prepared ourselves for the next day because it was going to be an important one.

DAY 3

22nd July 2019

After having breakfast, reaching the university and giving each other best wishes, we went on for our first event, which was the Scholar’s challenge. It is a set of 120 Multiple Choice Questions, consisting of 20 questions from each subject(Science, Social studies, History, Special area, Literature and Art and music). The next activity/event was Team debates. Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t win the first debate; however, we won the other two. The motions for our debates were: “This house believes that social media increases marginalisation”, “Future inventors should be guided from science fiction” and “Schools should have courses which teach how history could have turned out”. Our team was supposed to take the side of For/Affirmative, Against/Negative and Against/Negative for all three debates respectively.

Also, the best moment during the whole debate was when we connected to the university’s wifi and checked the internet speed crossing 100 MBPS!

Once we fulfilled ourselves with lunch after the tiring morning, it was time for the final event for the day, Collaborative Writing. For this activity, we get 6 topics, each from one of the 6 subjects. Each of the three members of our team has to choose one topic. After getting the topic, the team is given 20 minutes to research on their topics and 40 minutes to write after that. The final 15 minutes can be used to collaborate within the team about whatever all three members have written. I had chosen science and my topic was “Describe a job that we don’t have the technology for yet, but will exist after 20 years”. I described a job related to Artificial Intelligence (AI). After this event, we departed from the university.

DAY 4

23rd July 2019

This was our fourth day in the Hague, the day of the last event which was the scholar’s bowl. In this event, each team is given a clicker with 5 letters/options. The whole audience, filled with multitudinous teams, is presented with the questions on a large screen. The questions are from the 6 subjects, and any question may be a combination of 2 subjects. For example, a question may show a painting, which was part of the Art and music syllabus, and ask which scientist would relate to this ideology. Therefore, to perform well in the bowl, all subjects should be clear to the team.

Looking at the bowl from a different perspective, it was very entertaining and amusing, the way the questions were framed and how they were presented.

Following the bowl was lunch, where we discussed our performance in the bowl and the next activity was one of the most exciting moments- the alpaca adoption event. As they invited the audience section by section on the stage to collect the alpaca stuffed toy, everyone sat with patience and excitement at the same time. When it was our team’s turn, I went up the stage to collect 3 alpacas for my team.

Ultimately, we headed for the buses and went back to the hotel. But this wasn’t the end of all the excitement for the day. The scholar's ball was there as well. The scholar’s ball was a party for scholars or teams which ended quite late in the night. However, being late that night wasn’t a problem, as the next day was a break. We went to the ball around 8 pm. Consecutively, after a few hours in the scholar’s ball, enjoying with friends, we headed back to the hotel around 11 pm.

DAY 5

24th July 2019

This day was a free one, to take a break from WSC and have fun with friends. Excitingly, we visited a theme park! Not only did we enjoy all the rides that we tried but also had delicious food at a restaurant in the theme park. From the thrilling ones to the water rides, we did not miss any.

This was the most fun day out of all. We returned to the hotel after a few hours of fun, satisfyingly.

DAY 6

25th July 2019

After preparing ourselves for the award ceremony and the last day, we proceeded to the university. Because of the large number of scholars and medals, the ceremony was going to take long. However, we were excited as we waited for our names to appear on the screen. In the end, I managed to get 4 medals. Nevertheless, this wasn’t the end of the award ceremony. The names for the teams who got selected for the next and final round were yet to be revealed. This round will be the toughest and will be held at Yale University. Astonishingly, our team’s name appeared on the screen!

Following this exciting period of time was the closing ceremony, where people from different countries carried their country’s flag.

After this tiring day, we went back to the hotel and rested, as we were leaving the next day.

DAY 7

26th July 2019

As our flight was sometime in the evening, we, firstly, went for a cruise. It was especially amusing because of all the fun we had on the cruise.

After the cruise, we didn’t only shop but also had a lot of fun visiting the whole of Amsterdam, which is a fascinating city. I managed to take many pictures of the different places we visited.

Following all the fun we had, our bus headed to the airport. Consecutively, we had to wait in queues before boarding the aeroplane. As I didn’t have to worry about studying the syllabus on the flight, I watched many movies.

The whole trip was exceedingly pleasing and fun.

I really look forward to the next round, the Tournament of Champions(TOC) at Yale University. Preparing for this round will be especially hard as the events are one level higher. I hope the next round is as fun as the previous one...