Is Science Olympiad worth it?

[winneratlife]

Well thanx guys...

I guess at least thanks to SO, I actually have fun talking to all of YOU
(Most of my team, not so much)

It's still a stretch though, to be honest, rebutting each point was kind of silly on my part, I shoulda just stuck with my last paragraph =)

Last 2?

[SOninja]

how do you feel knowing that you spent hours and hours of your precious time and essentially WASTED it...
Do you find Science Olympiad to still be worth it?

It sucks. I know because in my first year, I spent so long doing mystery architecture (i just loved it) every meeting... at home... etc.
It was the first event I had ever done as well as the only event I was doing, so I put everything into it.
at competition, we built the tallest tower there!

...and uhhh it wouldn't hold a bag of sand for a few seconds... and we got 2nd tiered... and that went badly...

and afterwards, when I chucked the remains my lunch into the trash, my tower (like 20 ft away) collapsed. I was like ...r u kidding -_-

[soobsession]

Last year, I was stuck on Meteorology at the last minute for States. That (along with Fossils) was one of the only events I was doing. I studied pretty hard for that event. We got the test. It was everything I didn't study plus weather. We did bad.

Sure, maybe that happens sometimes... maybe it happens often, but in the long run, it's absolutely worth it. You learn something from what you screwed up on. You make a ton of friends who you can laugh at all the inside jokes with. You can hold your head up high when someone calls you a nerd. And when someone asks "What's SO?", you can grin and say "Something Obviously awesome/nerdy/[insert adjective]"

And when it comes to winning, I can relate. I tolerate nothing less than gold. My motto was "There's no place, but first place." And when I didn't live up to that at States, yeah, it was disappointing. Very disappointing. But life isn't perfect with all your pretty, shiny pieces of metal on ribbons all lined up nice and neatly in a row. I guess I learned that the harder way. Now, I tolerate nothing less than bronze

But is SO worth it?
Absolutely.

[nerdygrlz789]

Worth it. I've made so many friends, and not afraid to be myself. And now I can embrace my inner nerd, and I've never been happier.
S.O. IS LIFE!

[gneissisnice]

Last year, I was stuck on Meteorology at the last minute for States. That (along with Fossils) was one of the only events I was doing. I studied pretty hard for that event. We got the test. It was everything I didn't study plus weather. We did bad.

Sure, maybe that happens sometimes... maybe it happens often, but in the long run, it's absolutely worth it. You learn something from what you screwed up on. You make a ton of friends who you can laugh at all the inside jokes with. You can hold your head up high when someone calls you a nerd. And when someone asks "What's SO?", you can grin and say "Something Obviously awesome/nerdy/[insert adjective]"

And when it comes to winning, I can relate. I tolerate nothing less than gold. My motto was "There's no place, but first place." And when I didn't live up to that at States, yeah, it was disappointing. Very disappointing. But life isn't perfect with all your pretty, shiny pieces of metal on ribbons all lined up nice and neatly in a row. I guess I learned that the harder way. Now, I tolerate nothing less than bronze

But is SO worth it?
Absolutely.

It was the same with my food science event. I'd actually done it before in B division, we got 4th place at nationals, so I thought I was more than prepared for C division. I studied and studied for states (it wasnt offered at our regionals), and when we got to the test, it was absolutely nothing like the B division tests, and nothing that I studied for. I spent hours memorizing amino acids, vitamins and their deficiencies, minerals, and things like that, and we had around 2 questions on those. Instead, the event director decided that he didnt want the event to be Food Chemistry, so it just became chemistry. Molarity, titrations, identifying substances from chemical properties...it's as if I was suddenly assigned to Chem lab instead of Food Science. My partner ended up doing most of the event because she knew the chem, and I tried doing the biology stuff I knew, which was a very small part of the test. We didnt do well.

But despite that, I learned a pigeon of a lot about food science on the way. It wasn't what the event writer apparently wanted, but I'm sure itll be useful at some point in my life =)

[Fuzzy Mint]

Yeah, it's depressing when things go wrong, and you don't place. Like this regionals was the first year out of what, 4, that I didn't place at all, and that made me mad and sad.... I also got kicked off of the "varsity" or whatever you want to call the better team. But at least we're going to state, we had fun, ate a ton of food and yeah, theres all that knowledge stuff too...

[Big_Platypus]

Well sometimes I think no because of all the negitive things. I rarely see my family, like litterally I probably see my parents less than 9 hours a week. I am at school for around 13 hours. I spend more time at school than home. On the weekends, I go over to my cousin's house(that one is my fault) and don't see my parents until late sunday.
But then I think yes because of the benifits. I made numerous friends, had so many great moments, and won so many medals. Also, my science classes are easier because of certain events, and I even have outsmarted a teacher before on a subject. The happiness is worth it I think, but my family is severely effected. So I do not know fully.

Also, the last moment in the year (unless if you place in nationals) is sad. At state I was severely sad when we placed fourth (which I think is epic) but I was not sad that we didn't go to nationals. The sadness is having to leave those friends that you made, leave the fun test moments, leave the winning of metals. I realized this and almost cried. I hate the ending of the year. I hate having to leave my friends. That is why I must go to nationals. My days of talking with my partners, practicing experiments, taking bio-process test must last as long as possible. I want to be the very best, the best there ever was. To answer them is my real test, to win them is my cause. (+1 cookie to whoever gets the referece)

So if you are okay with leaving your family for making friends and also becoming more intelligent and probably improving grades (unless if you lose homework time), yes it is definately worth it.

[winneratlife]

To answer them is my real test, to win them is my cause. (+1 cookie to whoever gets the referece)

Pokemon reference
Cookie pl0x

And when it comes to winning, I can relate. I tolerate nothing less than gold. My motto was "There's no place, but first place."

Meh, stealing my motto?

[Big_Platypus]

To answer them is my real test, to win them is my cause. (+1 cookie to whoever gets the referece)

Pokemon reference
Cookie pl0x

And when it comes to winning, I can relate. I tolerate nothing less than gold. My motto was "There's no place, but first place."

Meh, stealing my motto?

( :: ) COOOOOOOOOKIE!

Oh ya I forgot. Also Science Olympiad creates more awareness to other cultural things. For example, the game that the character in my avatar is from is from a game that I learned from people in science olympiad (although it was more of a non science olympiad person who hid it from me but one time he said the name of one of the games and someone at sciecne olympiad told me more) I forgot completely about that benifit. Also, you can hear some hilarious quotes at it.
For example, "I wish our coach would just walk in with a gun..." and " Make a Punnet square to determine all possible feather colors for the children of Homozygous Black and Heterozygous White rabbits."

[x16VOLTx]

Science Olympiad is definelty worth it, and I understand, we have our regionals at Cal U, and no offense, but it doesn't house the most intellectual people... Our school has been ripped-off on more than one occasion...