Author | Lydia Rice |
From left to right: Kelsey Howlett, Allie Wilcox, Lydia Rice, and Daniel Wright
“I was up all night...6 nights in a row.”
“I nearly died.”
“What have I done to deserve this???”
Imagine a Mean Girls styled video testimony of students in various states of sleep deprivation saying those quotes.
Soon, you won't even have to imagine. This is the conversation that fills the hall around every January as high schoolers realize the deadline for Mrs. Yount's NHD project draws near.
Now, NHD stands for National History Day. (And like I said, if your schedule for next year has a Mrs. Becky Yount on it, you’re going to want to read very closely.)
National History Day is a competition for middle school and high schoolers to create a documentary, exhibit board, paper, website, or performance that presents and analyzes a topic in history. It’s the nerdiest of all nerd competitions and has three levels, Regionals, States, and Nationals.
“Ooof, I’m definitely not competing in this thing,” you might be thinking as you read this article.
SIKE. I would not be getting my hopes up. In fact, the goal of this article is to let you know how awesome competitions are and *gasp* maybe even convince you to compete.
See, Mrs. Yount teaches high school history classes at Scholars Guild and next year is project year.
So, if you're an Honors Student you will be competing and even if you aren't an Honors Student, you'll be completing a project.
And yeah, it's a lot of work and research and time, but, in my opinion, it's so worth it. But, this article isn't a “tips for the project” (because that would be a whole other article and not super relatable this year) but why, and more importantly, if you should compete.
So, should you compete?
Short answer, yes.
Picture answer, still yes. Above is Daniel Wright on television getting interviewed for winning a trip to Washington D.C. for the special World War I project award at NHD that year.
Long answer, yes yet again, but here's why. Regionals is not too hard of a competition, and it's actually my favorite level.
Plus, NHD, as indicated in the title, is a nationally recognized program, so even placing in Regionals looks fantastic on a college application.
Scholars Guild goes to UGA for the competition, but it would be more accurate to say that Scholars Guild brings the competition to UGA.
Our pamphlet on an off-year when SGA doesn't bring the full force looks a little thin.
This year, we only had two pages of competitors out of the 5 possible categories AND junior and senior levels AND individual and group projects. Each of these categories, has 3 spots to send people to the State competition. For example, Junior Individual Documentary, Senior Individual Documentary, and Junior Group Documentary all are judged separately and together can send 9 people to State.
This year, everyone went to State automatically and this isn't a super rare occurrence.
So, what does a day at good old Regionals at UGA look like?
Well, once you get the preliminary stuff out of the way (register at the table, find your competition room and interview time, and set up your project), the real fun begins. Regionals is crazy exciting because you’re there with everyone from your history class and sure, you’re crazy nervous, but you can all be crazy together.
If you haven’t be able to tell, the keyword is crazy.
Being with a group means exchanging stories about how interviews went, grabbing a fantastic burger at Grind House, and watching as SGA snags almost all of the awards during the ceremony. (Because you poured your blood, sweat, and all your tears into that project and you deserve a little victory lap).
My favorite memory? We were all getting burgers after everyone’s interviews were over and we waited for the judges to finish. Everyone’s swapping stories about how their interviews went. It sounds a little like this,“Okay, it went well, but one of the judges had this scrunched up look and her eyes went like super squinty the whole time.” “Oh really? Mine had this crazy red lipstick.”
The combination of that mysterious energy unique to a room of greasy food and a hunger fueled by adrenaline captured the whole table in lively conversation, when suddenly - what’s that outside? - we notice a dude pushing around a chicken in a stroller. Yes, a chicken in a stroller in Athens.
Ricky Harper dives for the door, Emma Harper dives for her phone, and I charge right outside with them. Ricky and I interrogate the guy about the chicken and Emma asks if she can take a picture.
I'll never forget that chicken. It was pretty cute too.
Overall, Regionals is a small, cozy competition. Comparatively, it’s low stakes and a great first introduction into the world of competitive history projects.
So, what about States and Nationals?
Those are fantastic experiences too, but wayyyy bigger. I interviewed Emma Harper, who has made it all the way to Nationals, about her opinion on the differences between State and Nationals.
“State is fun because you go with people you competed with or against. It’s a little bit more comfortable, more personal if that makes any sense because it's all Georgia people and to some degree, it feels like you're all on the same team because the goal is to represent your State well. But then when you get to Nationals it's super exciting because then you see completely different thought processes and approaches and it feels much more diverse which is intimidating but also really exciting because you're getting the full breadth of perspectives and interests and all that.”
To the right: Emma Harper and her exhibit
In my opinion, State definitely feels like the next step up from Regionals. Its tons of fun to explore the college campus, which you don't do as much at UGA, and compete with more people, but Nationals feels like an entirely different competition.
For one, Nationals takes place over several days and most people grab a hotel room and stay the week to tour Washington, D.C. It's a bit like a stressful vacation.
Also, the opening speech is where everyone whose competing gathers on the giant lawn under their flags is literally insane. Students from every single state, U.S. territory, and even some other nations are there. There are awesome guest speakers like Ken Burns and some less awesome attempts to get us to all sing parodies of One Direction songs about how history is the best (We may be nerds, but there is a line, okay?)
When asked about her favorite NHD level, Kelsey Howlett, who has been to Nationals twice, actually said, “Nationals. Duh. Opening Ceremony.”
By far the best part of the actual competition is trading pins. Once you get one of the two spots in your category and division at State, not only do you get a shiny medal and a certificate but a bag of trading pins for your State. Then, at the opening ceremony, you track down everyone you can and trade pins to try to get one from every State/territory there.
When asked about his favorite memory from NHD, Ridge Powelson - another student who made it to Nationals - said, "My favorite memory overall for NHD is the making great contacts at the National Archives, but my one specific to a contest would be the pin trading. It was awesome to have an excuse to get to know people from all over the country and from territories/other countries. It was also extremely satisfying to get a coveted NHD pin."
Daniel Wright, who has consistently dominated at all levels of competition and placed 9th at Nationals, was asked what the funniest memory he had of NHD. He answered, "The funniest NHD memory I have actually happened before I did NHD. We were at Nationals when Nathan was in 8th grade I think, and I was going around trading NHD Georgia pins, and I went up to this guy and asked him if he had a Georgia pin. He just looked at his shirt and said: "Umm...well...yeah." I looked at his shirt and it was the year's NHD Georgia shirt."
From left to right: Ridge Powelson and Daniel Wright
But, aside from the actual competition, there are plenty of crazy memories to be made. When asked what her favorite memory was, Emma Harper said: “Walking around the basin and seeing all the monuments is cool, except it's also exhausting and then the American History Museum is really, really, really, really neat.”
Still, never let it be said NHD isn't also eight parts stressful. As Mrs. Yount likes to say, “It's not NHD without a heart attack.”
“The most hectic part was setting up my board because I had a very short amount of time to get it up and I accidentally left the iPad with all the pictures in the hotel room and so I literally had to get somebody to go get it but they weren't going to get it back to me fast enough so they were like emailing me the pictures from the iPad to my phone. That was hectic - that was terrifying - but I got it done so it was okay.” - Emma Harper
But despite through the crazy and the stressful, NHD is 100% worth it. The memories you get from every competition make it worth it.