12 HOSA students and their sponsors are heading to Corpus Christi Thursday for the Texas HOSA State Competition from Friday through Sunday. The competition includes various events related to health and medicine and is an opportunity to demonstrate the skills competitors have.

“They compete against other schools, not just in the area, but in the state with anything from art display to persuasive speaking to EMT and CPR,” HOSA co-sponsor Stephen Friar said. “They just try to see if their skills match up against the best in the state.”

For senior Yashwant Harkara, it will be the first time going to the state-level of competition.

“I’m really excited for state,” Harkara said. “I haven’t gone for HOSA yet so it’s a great opportunity and I am pretty nervous but I’m confident that we won’t be disappointed if we do our best.”

Some competitors have been preparing for their events well in advance while also picking up techniques to improve studying habits.

“We started reading the books in the beginning of the school year and I’ve just been slowly reading them to prepare for the test since the beginning of the school year when the books came out,” sophomore Kelly Sun said. “It taught me a lot of study skills like not to procrastinate because you really can’t procrastinate for medical reading.”

State level competitions can be stressful, but Friar has faith the student will do well.

“Ever since I’ve been here we’ve always had at least one or two groups go to nationals and they’ve done pretty well,” Friar said. “We don’t put a lot of pressure on them because our kids are pretty self motivated but all in all they do a pretty good job as far as preparing themselves for it.”

Below is a list of the students competing and their respective events:

Amy Abraham (senior) Healthcare Issues

Abby Dasgupta (junior) HOSA Chapter Reflection

Aamerah Haque (senior) Epidemiology

Yashwant Harkara (senior) Biomedical Debate

Arun Krishnaraj (senior) Biomedical Debate

Justin Lee (senior) Epidemiology

Alex Najjar (senior) Healthcare Issues

Annam Ramasamy (freshman) Medical Spelling

Taha Siddiki (senior) Biomedical Debate

Nikhil Sridharan (senior) Biomedical Debate

Kelly Sun (sophomore) Med Reading

William Wang (sophomore) Dental Term