A couple of weekends ago, I had the honor of participating in the National Debate Tournament. The tournament was intense, challenging, but most importantly, exciting and incredibly rewarding to participate in an event that I have spent hours upon hours watching videos from. Not only that but seeing how my debate career has culminated to the point that enabled me to even qualify for the tournament has been incredible.

The year started out rough. My partner and I went 1-5 at the Northwestern Season Opener tournament. That loss did not discourage us, however, rather, motivated us to figure out what went wrong, and how to do better next time. We steadily improved over the season; from breaking even to quarters for the first time at West Point to being the first prelim seed at the Minnesota College Invitational.

My partner, Vikram Saigal, and I reached a point where we felt confident to qualify for the National Debate Tournament which we did at the district qualifier tournament. At that point, we became the first NYU team in history to qualify for the NDT as freshmen.

The NDT itself was incredible. Not only was debating fun, but the very meaningful interactions I made by just meeting incredible coaches and current & former debaters that I have learned a lot of debate from were inspiring. I have grown a lot as a debater this year through the help of my coach Will Baker, the amazing team at NYU, and many many others, but I cannot go without recognizing the very organization that enabled me to even explore debate — the Washington Urban Debate League. Before I knew that the national circuit of debate even existed, WUDL was there to feed me the basics while also pushing me to learn more. WUDL did not end on the last day of school but was also there with the free Matthew Harris Ornstein Summer Debate Institute to keep my mind active during Summer. Without WUDL, where I am today would be entirely inconceivable.

With that said, I am only just starting. Vikram and I were one ballot off from breaking to elimination rounds, so next year, the goal is to push past that point and become an NDT elimination round participant!