Three Reasons to Attend SJDI

Considering debate camps this summer? Here are three reasons you should choose the San Jose Debate Intensive!

1. Staff quality – SJDI has some of the best instructors in the country (check them out here). Our staff has won or coached winners of almost every major tournament: Glenbrooks, Emory, Blake, Harvard-Westlake, St. Mark’s, Greenhill, Stanford, Apple Valley, and more. Because our camp is capped at 80 kids, considerably smaller than most other programs, you will be working with our instructors in a more personalized environment. Our smaller size also allows us to demonstrate a greater degree of selectivity when hiring instructors, which means all students, regardless of skill level, will be working with highly qualified instructors.

2. The intensive model. The central element of our camp, intensives, worked very well for students last year (see what they had to say here). Rather than delivering a large lecture to 50+ students at a time, you’ll receive a thorough lecture with under 20 other students, followed by an extensive drill session with just 3 other students and one instructor. The intensive model ensures that students receive a ground-up introduction to essential debate concepts and affords them the time necessary to practice executing these concepts to the point of mastery. The intensive model is also designed to avoid the piece-meal approach to lecturing that many other camps employ, where students sign up for several lectures about miscellaneous debate topics with no central theme and no system for ensuring that the information provided in those lectures has been retained.

3. Practice debates. SJDI places emphasis on practice debates to help students master the material we teach. Since we provide students with starter packets, a collection of fully written cases for the Affirmative and Negative sides, at the start of camp, practice debates will start within days of the beginning of camp. Each student will debate more than 20 full-length practice rounds, with time set aside in the schedule for rebuttal re-dos and feedback from instructors. In lab, or the main group in which a student will learn, they will participate in countless drills on kritiks, disadvantages, counterplans, philosophical frameworks, and more, in addition to having mentor and lab time to learn these skills as well. Our curriculum guarantees that you’ll leave camp with a very solid understanding of all the circuit debate concepts you need to have a competitive next season.