Written by Katherine Xue

As spring rolls in and many of our PDA students look towards TOC and nationals qualifiers, we’re happy to feature another one of our amazing student leaders! Starting from our Middle School Novice classes all the way now to High School Varsity+, Captain Ekansh Dave has been debating with Potomac for the past four years. He’s now a junior at Poolesville High School, involved in everything from STEM research to community service. 

Although Ekansh began debating in middle school with Potomac, his high school offered a different story. Because he comes from a “small school, who never even had an NSDA team or account until recently”, he’s learned a lot along the way. Specifically, Ekansh points to the “three humps of debating” he overcame: first, progressing past preliminary rounds at debate tournaments. 

The typical structure of a debate tournament includes six preliminary rounds, where teams fight to achieve a winning record (often 4-2 and above). Those with winning records advance, or “break”, to elimination rounds—in rare occasions, ties would be broken through seeds, or rankings, determined by speaker points. For Ekansh, this started off as a struggle: “my partner and I…used to either have winning records with bad speaker points, or never even get close to breaking.”

Yet even after crossing this first hump, the second hump of winning the first elimination round loomed in front of him. “My partner and I were so confident at every turn, but used to barely lose and the opportunity would slip from our grasp”. The final hump in Ekansh’s way was that of the illustrious “bid round”. In other words, if a debater advances far enough, they earn a “bid” to the Tournament of Champions—typically in the octafinal, quarterfinal, or semifinal round of a tournament. For Ekansh, these humps proved challenging to overcome, but “through working with Potomac coaches, attending office hours, working through cases with coaches, and practice rounds against friends and other teams, we were fortunate to break through all three hurdles and secure a bid.” 

That means that this year, he’ll be submitting an at-large application to the Tournament of Champions, where less than 2% of debaters qualify annually. This year’s Public Forum TOC topic revolves around presidential authority to deploy forces abroad, which Ekansh thinks “seems really interesting and opens a lot of avenues for interesting argumentation, both topical and progressive”. He’s also preparing for Chesapeake Districts in March, where he’s “really excited to compete at districts for the first time for our team and hopefully qualify for nationals!”

For Ekansh, his journey in debate has contained both highs and lows, leaving him with countless lessons and memories. In particular, one round was especially embarrassing and memorable: it was their first time debating against an Afropessimism Kritik (if you have no idea what that means, don’t worry!), which was “an argument we were not prepared for and wholly worried to hit”. In the first crossfire, they end up giving “such an embarrassing and bad answer that the judge stops scrolling on his phone and starts listening to cross.” Unsurprisingly, Ekansh’s team lost that round, and he remembers how “it was so embarrassing listening to the judges give a 0-3 decision and cite that first cross as a voting issue”. 

Regardless, the lessons Ekansh has learned from debate—in addition to facing progressive argumentation—have been vital for him. Unlike the typical “debate kid”, Ekansh actually leans toward STEM, and he attends the STEM magnet program at his school. He’s found that his debate experience helped him “research, eliminate, cite, and compile the most important resources; credit authors properly; cut out the most important parts of the research, and more,” skills commonly used in the literature reviews of his research internships. Additionally, when presenting the research, methodology, and process of inventions, Ekansh’s prior experience has given him a leg up in public speaking, “since being able to explain without referring to the board or notes is both impressive and captivating as a speaker”. To him, “critical thinking, research, and problem solving are rewarded as part of debate, and these skills are applicable anywhere else since they are so ubiquitous as life skills.”

As for Ekansh’s non-debate interests, he’s pretty fond of wielding computer science to serve his community. He was part of an international finalist team for the Conrad Challenge—a global STEM innovation and entrepreneurship competition—and created a free and accessible IDE (integrated development environment) open to adoption in his county. With over 200 community service hours, it’s clear that Ekansh brings the same hustle he has on the debate floor to everything he does.

That’s all for today’s feature! Ekansh’s journey is a reminder that the humps are always worth climbing, and we couldn’t be prouder to have been part of the ride. See you next time!