College Academic Competitions?

[windu34]

The next competition after competing in Division C is life. Your new competition is life. Pick a domain, whether that be law, medicine, engineering, etc and compete to be the best in your field (or student for now). While its not exactly the same, I truly believe that competing in Science Olympiad will have prepared you with the right mindset to pick a domain of competence and dominate in it. You have developed the discipline to study for hours and hours on end and you have hopefully gained the understanding of being able to recognize when you dont understand concepts and need to delve into them deeper. These are skills that will set you ahead of the vast majority of other college students and now it is time for you to apply them to life outside Science Olympiad competitions. There is a reason things like Science Olympiad and Science Bowl don't really exist for college students. I'm not saying dont stay involved in Science Olympiad, but you need to make the transition from competitor to organizer/volunteer in that respect and take your yearning to compete to something bigger.

[pikachu4919]

I'm starting college in the fall (UNC-Chapel Hill) and I need something to replace the gaping void scioly will leave behind in my life a new hobby. Of course, I'll be volunteering at the regional, state, and invitational level (and maybe national someday) but I would also like to compete in... something.

So are there any clubs or activities that are similar to scioly in college?

If you do enough scioly volunteering, that should take up plenty of time

The next competition after competing in Division C is life. Your new competition is life. Pick a domain, whether that be law, medicine, engineering, etc and compete to be the best in your field (or student for now). While its not exactly the same, I truly believe that competing in Science Olympiad will have prepared you with the right mindset to pick a domain of competence and dominate in it. You have developed the discipline to study for hours and hours on end and you have hopefully gained the understanding of being able to recognize when you dont understand concepts and need to delve into them deeper. These are skills that will set you ahead of the vast majority of other college students and now it is time for you to apply them to life outside Science Olympiad competitions. There is a reason things like Science Olympiad and Science Bowl don't really exist for college students. I'm not saying dont stay involved in Science Olympiad, but you need to make the transition from competitor to organizer/volunteer in that respect and take your yearning to compete to something bigger.

I would say that both Unome and windu’s points here are so, so true. I did five weekends of scioly tournaments all back-to-back in various locations this past year and honestly, that took tons of time already, and I was definitely feeling time-crunched on getting my schoolwork done at certain points during my travels (but I probably also did that to myself by hardcore procrastinating on everything, including finishing all the tests I was supervising), also since I work a job in dining and am part of a research lab... I lead such a busy life and it drives me crazy sometimes but I genuinely like everything I’m involved in anyways so honestly volunteering was probably enough for me in terms of my extracurriculars XD

[lumosityfan]

I would say no matter what competition you help out/participate in take your time with it. Don't feel like you have to spend every minute of your day spending time on it. I'll give an example from my freshman year of college. I love quizbowl immensely and I wanted to participate in it as much as I could. Therefore, I went to as many tournaments as I could and helped out at as many tournaments as I could. While it was very much fun and all, my schedule and my grades took a toll as I couldn't really balance everything in my life. windu is totally correct when he says the next step is life and what I mean by that is balance. Now in college you have to do everything yourself and you didn't have your parents around to help you out. Therefore, it will be a lot more difficult to do as much in scioly for instance as you did in high school. I highly recommend giving back to scioly but be cautious in how much you do. Only do as much as you can so that you don't feel burnt out. I realized that at the end of my freshman year and scaled back how much I did. It has made me more sane with my schedule and has allowed me to do better in school (no seriously look at my GPA now and in freshman year if you don't believe me ) That being said, I highly endorse quizbowl and helping out in scioly. If you need any help with the former, I'm a member of the Columbia University quizbowl team and know some people who used to be a part of the UNC quizbowl team; I would be more than happy to get you acquainted with the activity and those people who were formerly involved (and the community in general)

[windu34]

Only do as much as you can so that you don't feel burnt out. I realized that at the end of my freshman year and scaled back how much I did. It has made me more sane with my schedule and has allowed me to do better in school (no seriously look at my GPA now and in freshman year if you don't believe me )

This is also a really good point, dont over-commit immediately. Try to gradually add on to the number of things you are involved in until the point hits where you realize you are no longer able to balance it and then drop that last activity. Your GPA is way more important now in college than in high school and your professional career outlook (Law, Medicine, Grad School, etc) will be highly dependent on your academic success in undergrad. I also 100% recommend getting involved in a research lab if you want to go into the science and a design team if you want to go into engineering.
Another point to make is that your undergrad GPA will stay with you forever and you cant go back and fix it, but you can always get involved in research, ECs, volunteering, etc after you graduate.

[pikachu4919]

Only do as much as you can so that you don't feel burnt out. I realized that at the end of my freshman year and scaled back how much I did. It has made me more sane with my schedule and has allowed me to do better in school (no seriously look at my GPA now and in freshman year if you don't believe me )

This is also a really good point, dont over-commit immediately. Try to gradually add on to the number of things you are involved in until the point hits where you realize you are no longer able to balance it and then drop that last activity. Your GPA is way more important now in college than in high school and your professional career outlook (Law, Medicine, Grad School, etc) will be highly dependent on your academic success in undergrad. I also 100% recommend getting involved in a research lab if you want to go into the science and a design team if you want to go into engineering.
Another point to make is that your undergrad GPA will stay with you forever and you cant go back and fix it, but you can always get involved in research, ECs, volunteering, etc after you graduate.

I would say I disagree with parts of your point about your undergrad GPA staying with you forever. It is true that it will be instrumental in helping you get to grad school or professional school (like med or law school) or your first job (if you go directly from a Bachelor’s to industry). But really, even though it’ll help you reach those kinds of milestones, no one will care about your GPA in any subsequent job applications you file after having your first job, and they will care significantly more about what experience you’ve gotten. They even dare to say that if you have phenomenal undergraduate campus research experience or co-op/internship experience, then it may be able to override a mediocre GPA on especially grad school applications (I’ve heard it’s a much different story for professional school).

By no means am I condoning that you shouldn’t have a great undergrad GPA - you should - but in the case that something hits it hard, it’s not the end of the world, other factors can help you greatly, and when you reach a certain point in your career following your graduation, no hiring managers will even care about what your undergrad GPA was - your degree already shows them that you’ve got the skills. It’s that point when they look at your experiences instead to see what kind of person you are holistically, rather than defining you with just a handful of numbers.