With UIL academic events being cancelled last year due to COVID, students are set to compete Friday and Saturday in the District 9-5A Academic Meet at Centennial High School with contests ranging from journalism to computer science.

“The UIL academics is several different events that students can compete in, and its limited how many people can compete in the event and get certain placings and some events it is only one placing that can event to the next thing which is regionals,” UIL campus coordinator Courtney Benson said. “So there’s several different events from accounting to science, students have four different categories that they can compete in with a written test and some tests and some are hands on.”

For Wingspan managing editor senior Ana Cuen, UIL contests are a bit different that what she normally does, but she hopes her daily work for Wingspan serves her well. 

“The UIL academic competition for journalism is a competition where you go into a school and there are like five events,” Cuen said. “The events range to 30 minute to 45 minutes and you write a story or a headline depending on what your event is. I am preparing for the competition by writing stories like I do every week, but putting more of an emphasis on my writing and the words I use and the execution of it.”

Like most UIL events, the academic competition is taking many COVID precautions. 

“So we have COVID guidelines and social distancing and we are trying to keep the crowds small,” Benson said. “All the speech and debate have been virtual this year, and will remain virtual for UIL districts and beyond I believe. And we are using more classrooms at the campus where it is going to be held. We are also doing it over two days, not just one, and get some events done Friday and Saturday will be other events so we can reuse those classrooms”