What RKS Alumni Have to Say

On the question “Would you recommend the RKS Workshop to others?” 100% said yes. 

“very organized and a great camp.”

“They were all super helpful with redos and argument development.”

“These instructors willingly took time even out of lab to help me with blocks, skills, and any questions I had. They were always available and taught me a ton of new ideas.”

“For me, I think I never recognized the imaginative possibilities and avenues I can explore within the realm of policy. Black framework especially opened up my mind to what is capable and to an extent, expected, from the top debaters in the nation. I learned how to think.”

“Having a healthy approach to debate - this year in particular, I felt that all of the instruction was meeting people where they were and not making anyone feel less than/embarrassed to ask questions, ask for help understanding an argument, etc. All of the instructors really made themselves available and were willing to sit down and explain things thoroughly. Having a bunch of different judges for practice rounds helped us become more familiar with our instructors, even if we never worked with them in a group. The different breakout groups helped make sure that it wasn't just a 65 person lab with only a handful of people being confident enough to participate, and so it seemed like everyone got a chance to feel listened to/helped out.”

“Working with DB was one of the best experiences of my entire debate career. He's really good at relaying the knowledge he has accumulated to students, and would answer all of my questions even though I would ask him a lot of annoying ones. Talking with him really shaped me intellectually and I'm really glad that he is on the RKS staff.”

“not only did they help me when it came to thinking and writing and being offensive in debate but i feel like they also helped me individually throughout the camp when i had personal issues regarding debate and they helped me through dealing with my positionality to debate”

“Really good balance between work and relaxation. I loved being able to work individually with lab leaders.”

“All of these instructors were extremely helpful and supportive in my research and practice debate feedback. I was able to discuss strategy for the upcoming season and give redos in front of them. Shanara was extremely helpful because she always made sure to never hold back when giving us feedback; she never sugar coated comments, not because she had bad intentions but because she wanted to see us succeed and knew she had to keep it real with us. Ruby and Madison were very kind to me and helped me improve my skills on the more policy side of things which is very different from my usual debate practice.”

“DB- he truly is a genius. he cares about us and dedicated so much time to us outside of his hours. he treated us equally, which I was not expecting tbh. Coming to a camp of ToC champions and top speakers, I was very hesitant to believe that anyone would genuinely see any potential in me. See that I could one day also reach that level of excellence. He answered my questions and talk me to live, breath the literature. If you are convinced of your own cases, it's a lot easier to gain that ethos and convince/ indoctrinate someone else.”

“i got a lot of time to work with instructors”

“Amber, after a round with me and *****, let all of us give rebuttal redos over and over again until the speeches were to our satisfaction. To have someone sit down and be so patient and understanding, letting us stop and restart the speeches and offering feedback within the confines of the 40 minute period to give redoes that we had was so meaningful. Coming from a school without a regular coach or squad room/set of people to listen to rebuttal redoes over and over again, it meant more than I can quantify to have a space to keep on giving speeches even if they're bad and not worry about being judged personally or neglected for giving a bad speech.”

“I loved how RKS didn't divide people into lab groups. Learning as a united collective was great because, although I wasn't one of the best teams here, I got to work alongside the best debaters and learn from them as well as my lab leaders. Also, it took the hyper-competition out of camp and made learning more of a formative experience.”

“it helped a lot to have [practice debates] and to have the rebuttal redoes BUILT into the schedule because it forced us to rewrite those speeches and go back. At a few other camps, debaters are freaked out about having practice rounds because they aren't reassured that it's just to get back into debates on the topic, and should be an educational rather than stressful experience. DB especially and all of the judges made sure that we realized that the rounds were for our benefit and weren't going to be used against us should we do poorly, which was super important and helped me to take risks in practice debates.”