HAS Students in World Scholar's Cup (Sydney)

Have you ever traveled to another country for a competition with your classmates and friends? I will tell you all about what happened to us during the World Scholar’s Cup Global Round in Sydney, Australia. The competition was from August 15th to August 21st. It was all a wonderful journey, although the airplanes we took were all economy class.

World Scholar’s Cup is a team academic competition. You compete on a team of three and win individual medals (I won a few myself). After a few months of practicing the questions together, our school teams joined the regional competition in Kaohsiung in March. All of the qualifiers were welcomed to join the global round (and I qualified, of course). At the global round, six of us represented our school: Kelly Loo, Maggie Gross, Hannah Li, Sophie Su, Jia-Qi Gooi, and me, Chris Tung.

Juniors, meaning those that were middle schoolers during the regional round, and Seniors, high-schoolers, have different schedules for the days, but we all attend the same events. The more fun events include Scholar’s Ball, Scholar’s Show, and the Scavenger Hunt. The ones that we compete and win medals in are: Debate, Scholar’s Challenge, Scholar’s Bowl, and, lastly, Collaborative Writing. On our days off, we also got to tour around Sydney.

The first day for us was great! For the Juniors, we had the Scavenger Hunt and ate dinner on a cruise. We sailed around Darling Harbor and took lots of pictures, such as the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney bridge and the beautiful ocean of seawater. The Seniors had a free day and went to Taronga Zoo.

The second day was exercise day for Juniors, but not for Seniors. We, the Juniors went to Taronga Zoo. It was a hot and dry day there. We studied lots of creatures with Ms. Keller and learned a little about them through the information on the wall. We interacted with some 2-legged creatures, like emus, bin chickens, and kangaroos, that walked on the human path.The Seniors, happily, had their Scavenger Hunt and dinner cruise.

Finally, it was time for the competitions. The third day, however, wasn’t that exciting. Juniors and Seniors started Debate and Challenge. We, the Juniors, after getting rekt by scholars from other countries in Debate, didn’t lose our confidence, but looked forward to those that yet hadn’t come. The Seniors were able to win their third round of debate! Though it was a rough day, we still had a good dinner and the Scholar’s Ball. On the fourth day we all joined together at the International Conference Center in Sydney for the Scholar’s Bowl, Scholar’s Showcase, and Debate Showcase. In the evening, we went to the Culture Fair to learn about all the countries that were attending the competition.

Finally, our time in Australia was almost over. The fifth day was the last day for the Juniors. After having so much competition and so much fun, it was time to say goodbye to the chairs we were sitting in. The Juniors won their metals and huge Alpaca stuffed-animal to bring back to Taiwan. Though the Seniors had their final free day, where they tried to see humpback whale but saw fur seals and albatross instead. On the sixth day, Seniors said goodbye to their chairs and collected medals while we went to Sydney Opera House and the Rocks Discovery Museum. We also spent lots of money that day to buy souvenirs for our school friends.

The trip was successful. We learned a lot of lessons that could never be taught at school. We all have happy faces to show everyone, and we all enjoyed the vacation to Sydney. I hope we can go back there and have a competition again as soon as possible!