By Maya Kostov
Jayden Cord, a sophomore, spent part of his summer at Princeton University participating in a debate camp. Jaden previously went to a school called New School for the Arts and Academics where he was part of a year-round debate team. The type of debate he is used to is different than what our school offers: it’s more interactive with the audience and focuses more on who provides the best argument rather than the most accurate points.
He was accepted into this summer program through a summer school called the Junior Statesmen of America, or JSA. The summer school has several places for programs like Georgetown, Stanford, and Princeton, also offering year-round programs. The classes at these programs are catered to prepare students for the kinds of classes they might take at the college level and will also hone their analytical reading and writing skills.
At Princeton, you can choose from several courses for your main classes: AP U.S. Government and Politics, AP Macroeconomics, International Relations, and Speech and Political Communication. Jayden picked AP Macroeconomics and had class for four hours every day. Macroeconomics is the study of economics at a large-scale view, like interest rates and productivity. Jayden says that one of the main things they talked about in his class was the Great Recession of 2008-2009.
Jayden’s normal day at Princeton would consist of four hours of Macroeconomics with a lunch break in between and then 2 to 3 hours of debate, where the two classes would generally overlap. For example, there would be days where they would have to apply information learned in Macroeconomics to arguments in debate.
When asked why he did this camp and what he liked about it, Jaden said, “Well, I wanted to do something for the rest of the summer and one of the coolest things about this camp was getting to experience the college life early. It was basically the real deal. We had an RA (Resident Assistant) who no one really acknowledged and it was like you were living on your own, excluding the curfew.”
Believe it or not, there were also many kids from other countries at this Princeton camp. Most of the kids were from the American islands, like Samoa or Puerto Rico.
The camp scheduled short trips to Philadelphia to see the Constitution Center and the Liberty Bell, as well as New York where they got to see the United Nations and have a Cultural Day for the international kids who hadn’t been to the United States before.
Jayden still goes to overnight conventions with his debate club from his old school and just recently went to a debate convention in Tucson. The JSA was going to do a summer program just like this one in China this past summer but didn’t get enough applicants. Jayden hopes that this coming summer he can apply for the program in China. The JSA programs are all very prestigious and are highly recommended to build up college resumes!