On March 13, 2024, the HHS Academic Decathlon team competed at the Pennsylvania Academic Decathlon State Competition under the leadership of advisor and HHS English teacher Derek Dietz. Despite missing members due to the Chicago music trip, the team worked together in order to succeed.
“I would say it was true commitment, we had insane buy-in from everyone from the team. It’s tough to do sometimes, but we had people step up and help out in big ways, individuals step up and help when they need to,” team advisor Derek Dietz said.
Founded at the beginning of the school year in 2023, Academic Decathlon established a strong foundation for the future. Kailey Whipple medalled in music and essay while Sara Joo placed in the essay category. In addition to competing at states, they had a strong 3rd place finish at the Eastern Pennsylvania regional competition in Methacton High School on February 3.
Academic Decathlon is a competition where competitors test their knowledge in ten categories: art, language and literature, music, science, social science, math, economics, speech, interview, and essay. Rather than dividing topics among the competitors, everyone does all the events at the same time. GPA is also an important factor in the team’s success: competitors compete in three different tiers based on their GPA. Students with an unweighted GPA from 3.8 to 4 are in the honors tier, 3.2 to 3.8 in the scholastic tier, and less than 3.2 in the varsity tier.
The competition also has a different theme every year. For 2024 to 2025, the theme is “Our Changing Planet.” All the events relate to the respective year’s theme in some way. For example, to succeed in the literature category, the Academic Decathlon is currently investigating the novel Solar Stars, which centers a young woman finding a connection with her native American ancestry. In order to properly prepare everyone for literature, the team discusses a variety of elements in the story such as the plot and the characters. Other sources such as music guides and science books help team members to learn more about each topic.
Although the topics are filtered through a different theme, the study routine stays the same from year to year, with the main difference being the new content. Some sections also stay the same throughout each theme—usually, social science and science end up experiencing the greatest shifts in content.
“It’s a great fun program for everyone, and everyone can be good at it if you invest your time, study, and are willing to spend time with great people,” Dietz said.
Teamwork is the main factor in the team’s success. By coming together and finding the right times to study, everyone is able to gain more knowledge from each other. Every Monday after school, they meet to study and prepare for the competition. In the weeks leading up to competitions, the team also goes on scrimmages with other schools and informally competes to measure their understanding. Sometimes, Hershey High School hosts scrimmages as well.
Academic Decathlon may be a competition, but it’s about the relationships and bonds you have with people, team members can interact with members from other schools. Dietz mainly started the HHS team because of his positive experience when he did Academic Decathlon when he was in high school.
“I loved every second of it, and for years I wanted to bring it here. It’s the greatest part of my job here, and I want it to continue to grow bigger and stronger,” Dietz said.
To learn more, talk to Mr. Dietz to join the Canvas page and Remind, or come to meetings every Monday after school in G146. The HHS Academic Decathlon is looking for new members, but especially those who have lower than a 3.8 GPA to do well in the scholastic and varsity tiers.
