Hershey’s Academic Decathlon team attended the Eastern PA open and saw great success. 

With the Eastern PA open being the first ever competition the Decathlon team attended, seeing as the club had started only last year, this success is especially impressive- the team won 15 medals in total. 

“It was honestly super tiring but rewarding! Every person who competed got a medal. Since it was Hershey’s first time competing in the history of the school, I was excited to start something that’s never been done before,” said Sara Joo, a senior on the team.

Joo competed in the honors division which includes people with a GPA above 3.8, and won 4 medals this weekend. 

The sheer amount of material members need to study is overwhelming, with at least a hundred pages dense for each category.  

“It’s like trying to drink a waterfall, there is so much content that it is practically impossible to learn everything,” said Derek Dietz, English teacher and coach of the Academic Decathlon Team.

Medals are awarded based on individual performance in the categories: art, music, literature, economics, mathematics, science, and social science. Team scores are then determined by adding up all points each individual member earns over all these exams, encouraging members to study for each category thoroughly. 

“You have to know the material and you have to know fast,” said Dietz.

Motivating club members is difficult as is, but especially so in this case since it is the club’s first year competing. 

“We just try to spend as much time as possible learning as much of it as possible,” said Dietz. 

The team’s next competition will be regionals in February, and if they place within the top two teams there, they will qualify for the state competition. 

“Finding out we all got medals made all of the hours of studying worth it. I’m looking forward to the next competition,” said Joo.