KOMPEK ENGLISH DEBATE COMPETITION JOURNEY

Berita Lainnya - 15 February 2022

KOMPEK ENGLISH DEBATE COMPETITION JOURNEY

Prepared by: Cecilia Gisella Suryadi XIA1

KOMPEK by FEB UI, one of the most prestigious highschool national scaled economic branched competitions held by the faculty of economics and business in Universitas Indonesia that has 4 branches of economic competitions, with one of them being the Economic Debate Competition (EDC). Competing against the best high school students in Indonesia, SMAK 1’s Jakarta English Debate team consisting of Mattheus Bryan, Jonathan Randall, and Cecilia Gisella representing SMAK 1, were able to take the Grand Champion title of the English Debate Competition (EDC) this year.

KOMPEK sure wasn’t an easy competition, there were selections months before we even got to debate, tons of processes and hard work. Before the 2nd of February when the debate competition begins, we actually had to pass a few procedures to be eligible to debate there, nationally. We had to submit some documents, waited patiently until we receive an email for the motions, write essays for their regional selection, wait for the regional announcement, we even had to make a tik tok video as part of their gathering event. There were definitely a lot of times when we sacrificed our short December holiday just to work on the essays and practice. However seeing the results now it felt like our sweats paid off.

Not to mention, our opponents that we fought with were also strong debating teams from different high schools all across Indonesia. The fact that they were able to pass the regional selection and go to the nationals shows that they’re qualified enough. Without realizing, debating against tough teams like them gained us more experience and more debate knowledge. Of course, everything is not as smooth as butter, there were times when we struggled, got pessimistic, and doubted ourselves especially during the nerve-wracking breaking announcements. The feeling of being nervous for half a day thinking of the possibility of winning silent rounds and screaming out of satisfaction after the results actually made the competition more exciting and challenging, it even made our love for debating grow.

The funny thing is, we still find debating fun regardless, not because we won those rounds or because we managed to rebut the opponent, it was fun just because. So to any of you out there who’s pursuing something, we’d just like to say this: if you think it’s hard or that it’s impossible to reach that goal, just remember that nothing’s ever easy in this world; if you think it’s stressful or boring, just make sure you have fun once in a while and don’t overwork yourself; but never forget that dreams do come true, so never give up.