The district competition was held on March 25 and 26 at Caney Creek High School against local schools such as Dayton, Kingwood Park, Montgomery, Lake Creek, New  Caney, Porter, Wunsche, and Cleveland. Students that have placed first to third place will be advancing to regionals on April 22 and 23.

I had no clue as to what to expect from the competition,” senior Roberto Garcia said. “The one thing I liked was that there was fierce competition. If there was no challenge it wouldn’t be as fun.”

Leading up to the competition the students had to stick to a steady schedule. They practiced a steady regiment of exercises which would benefit their overall performance in the events which they were competing in. 

“Green had us stay after school to practice our events,” sophomore Natalia Molina said.” The main thing that I struggled with in feature writing was my organization. Everyday that I stayed after school for five days a week and would just keep writing feature stories nonstop. When writing the stories I focused on the faults of my writing first. Not long after that I had become better at writing feature stories.”

When others are doubtful in anything people do, there are always those who will have something to prove. Parents being skeptical can ultimately fuel this ambition to try and prove them wrong. 

“My dad didn’t want me to be in UIL journalism,” senior Lizbeth Paz said. “He wanted me to get a job instead of doing extra curricular activities. He thought that being a UIL journalist was a waste of time, a waste money and a waste of effort.”

While others only look at things at face value, such as seeing only a dollar for what it is worth instead of focusing on the labor that went into obtaining the dollar. We can also imply this to UIL competitions. Instead of seeing it as a complete waste of time we can see that it teaches them valuable lessons which can be taken anywhere life may lead students. 

“This experience has taught me to be more self-confident in the way that I write,” Molina said. “I was never confident in the way that I wrote. This has brought up my confidence. Additionally, this experience has taught me to be patient and work through things so that the end result will pay off. My competitiveness has also risen. I was a little bit shy at first but now I’m ready to work through the hardships to see results.”

Obtaining an award or a trophy brings out joy and a sense of accomplishment. Although the ending tends to be joyous, the moments of suspense leading up to it can be a hard pill to swallow. 

“I was devastated,” Paz said. “I was already crying because I didn’t place in news writing. When they hadn’t called my name for copy editing, I was crying even more. I was slouching until I finally had heard my name being called for first place. I tried to wipe away my tears as I went to collect my medal because I was really embarrassed that I’d been crying beforehand.”

Competition is a big driver to encourage motivation, accountability, performance, and innovation within peers. It pushes you to be better than when you initially started and progress along with others around you. 

“Friendly competition definitely brings out the best in me,” Garcia said. “Besides Green and Cesar are my mentors. I didn’t remember anything about editorial writing so they helped me recap the information Mr. Green had given me so I would know what to do.”

Understanding that people in a team have a collective greater obligation towards one another is crucial for a team to succeed. They must be truthful, straightforward, and be willing to hold one another accountable.

“Being able to rely on others feels great because it lifts a bit of a burden,” junior Steven Stearman said. “There’s different roles that we implement which have us rely on others. Our strategy usually is to sort out questions by simplicity. And if it can be done on the top of our heads quickly, we can just write it out. “

There are many things to learn about working as a team. In the case of the computer science academic team, it has taught them to rely on one another in order to succeed in their event. 

“It’s taught them some sense of what’s definitely taught problem solving skills, and how to attack things,” computer science teacher Betty McCartney said. “The other thing is taught and particularly the programming portion of it, is it’s taught them how to work as a team and how to support each other and bounce ideas off each other.”