I've been a part of the Debate Team at Providence College since the very first meeting for novices began, and it's been a blast. I did something similar in High School but never imagined being able to travel as far as Washington D.C. or even Thailand to participate in a debate tournament. Not only is it an amazing time, but it's certainly a great experience just to see different colleges and meet new people.

The first Debate Tournament was at Boston University. It's set up particularly for novices to get their feet wet and essentially throw them straight into debates. We faced teams from universities all over New England including Yale, Brown, Harvard, and Tufts.

There were four rounds and a bunch of cool tutorials and explanations on how debate works. The basic format is as follows:

Leader of Government (Prime Minister) presents the case, and has 7 minutes to make starting arguments for such case.

Leader of Opposition (LO) presents first why his side of the case is better, and then refutes PM's points in 8 minutes.

Member of Government (MG) presents new points for the case, expands on the PM's case and shuts down the LO's case in 8 minutes.

Member of Opposition (MO) presents new points for his case, expands on the LO's case and rejects the PM's case for 8 minutes.

Leader of Opposition makes his final rebuttal for 4 minutes.

Prime Minister makes his final rebuttal for 5 minutes.

It sounds kind of complicated but in practice it's really simple and surprisingly intense. There were 4 rounds, and in those 4 rounds my partner and I played with cases such as..

Gov: "You are Aladdin. Do you use your last wish to free the Genie?"
Opp: "There should be no voting age in the U.S."
and Opp: "Internet Neutrality should always be upheld."

It was good fun, and even though we only won one of the rounds, I still feel like I got a bunch out of the experience. They're going to New York this weekend, but I have a concert this Sunday for Wind Ensemble and can't go. Regardless, it's a good excuse to go somewhere far away on the weekends and have a great time in the process.