Recently, students in extracurriculars such as Future Health Professionals (HOSA), Debate and Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) have emerged victorious in their respective competitions and several students have been selected to go to Nationals. After placing second at the State HOSA competition event involving medical assisting, junior Sana Khan will be representing West in Nashville, Tennessee from June 22-25.

“I remember in ninth grade learning about the immune system,” Khan said. “It always fascinated me how everything fit together. I think that is what drove my interest in the medical field.”

Khan’s genuine interest in becoming a health care professional helped her to succeed in a competitive environment even when she had doubts of her own.

“I didn’t really expect to advance,” Khan said. “ I wasn’t expecting to make it past round one so when we found out the results that first night I was freaking out because I had not prepared at all for round two. I woke up the next morning and I had to read through all the rubrics and memorize every step and pretend like it was the actual thing.”

While round one involved a written multiple choice test composed of procedural questions, round two was skills based. Students were given eight different skills to prepare with their own rubric and assigned two out of the eight to perform on competition day pertaining to a specific scenario. The skills may include basic tasks like taking height and weight, giving an eye test, recording information in a patient’s chart or filling out a health history form.

“It is really intimidating because when you walk into the room there are four different judges, as well as volunteers, timers, and a student volunteer who acts like a patient,” Khan said. “ It is a single person event so it is just you, on your own, with a bunch of people watching your every move.”

Khan was afraid but she found solace in the fact that she knew what to expect due to her past experiences at Area. Last year, as part of Jasper HOSA, Khan placed first at Area before going to State. This year, after placing second at State, Khan will now be able to display her prowess on a new platform farther north in June. This summer, junior Aashna Gupta also plans to travel northwards to represent West, but she will be competing in the Public Forum event as part of debate. Gupta will be going to Utah to represent West at a National level.

“Public forum is debate for the masses,” Gupta said. “It is the type of debate seen on television (TV). There is a formal structure but it is structured so that any layman can understand. You give your case, there’s a refutation and questioning and then you summarize the key points of the debate.”

Every year, the National Speech and Debate Association sponsors a debate tournament in Salt Lake City. The process is highly competitive with only the top three teams from the State level competition qualifying for Nationals.

“It has been a lot of preparation,” Gupta said. “When you walk into any round, you have to be prepared for both sides and when you go in you flip a coin so you never know what side you’re going to be. Whatever side you get, that is the side you have to defend and debate.”

Gupta and her partner would meet three days a week to collect information and write up their research, cases and major talking points. In partner events, the two speakers each give their own speeches but they wrote the speeches together to form a cohesive argument. Together, Gupta and her partner, Chetan Reddy, were able to qualify for the National competition.

“Nationals is one of those hallmark accomplishments in my debate career,” Gupta said. “I’ve been doing this event for the past three years and we keep getting to the same spot. We keep getting to State and getting the same accomplishments but we never exceed those accomplishments. Now, we finally have.”

Gupta is not the only student who has recently achieved a long-term goal. Senior Biraj Patel participated in a role-playing series event as part of DECA for his second year. He was able to make strides in his event which involved restaurant management and dealing with hypothetical business situations.

“Say you’re the Vice President of Sales for a new pizza chain,” Patel said. “You want to boost sales with a customer rewards loyalty program. You’re supposed to think of how the program would work and how it would boost sales. They also ask specific questions for each scenario like why would you choose to implement this vertically rather than horizontally across the chain.”

After receiving the scenario, students get 10 minutes to culminate information, prepare presentations and create visual aids to appeal to the judges. Students receive two scenarios each at both Regionals and State competitions and three at Nationals to standardize scores across the board. Patel placed second at Regionals in Haltom City and first at State in San Antonio so he ventured to Nashville, Tennessee from April 23-26 and competed once again.

“I competed against 180-200 kids in my event and although I didn’t end up placing as a finalist, competing at Internationals was still an extremely fun experience,” Patel said. “I highly recommend joining DECA next year if you’re currently a junior.”

After putting in countless hours of effort, DECA students like Patel were finally able to reap the rewards of their hard work in the form of memories. Students who will be competing during the summer look forward to doing the same.

“Being able to qualify in one of the hardest districts in the state of Texas feels amazing,” Gupta said. “It’s a proud feeling knowing that you’ve succeeded at something that you have been working so hard for. Being one of those people representing the district feels like a great accomplishment.”