Students are getting their chance to show off their skills this Saturday at the UIL Academic meet taking place at Prosper Rock Hill High School. 

“The UIL competition is an academic competition where students can demonstrate their knowledge in certain academic areas,” social studies teacher Collin Kantor said. 

Kantor, who is coaching students in the current events, social studies, and spelling events, has been helping students prepare for the competition. 

“There is a list of materials given out each year by the UIL group, and students can have those to access from. With current events, they just have to be knowledgeable about what’s going on in the world, so keeping up with the news: state, local, and international,” Kantor said. “To help them, I’ve been providing resources, time and place to study, and just giving them the motivation to do well.” 

Junior Rachel Kim is competing in feature writing in the Journalism event and has been preparing using resources from past years. 

“I’ve been preparing with the use of the resources that Mr. Higgins has provided each of the competitors for the journalism events,” Kim said. “I’ve been looking through these past stories and articles that other students have created and been using the stories and quotes that were given to create my own story so that I can prepare for the one-hour writing event on Saturday.”

CTE teacher Courtney Benson has coached students in Computer Applications and Accounting for five years. 

“My students will get with me, their coach, and I’ll give them practice tests and certain practice material from years before to prepare for what is on the test,” Benson said. 

Last year, one of her students, sophomore Sadie Johnson, got first place in the district for Computer Applications. 

“Last year was my first year, and I didn’t feel fully prepared because it was kind of weird because of COVID,” Johnson said. “I ended up getting first in the district, and then I was a state alternate which was weird because I wasn’t expecting it.” 

Kim is nervous about the competition but is excited to test her abilities against other students.  

“So for me, I am really excited because this is my first year. I will say I am quite nervous as I don’t really know how the competition works,” Kim said. “But I can’t wait to compete against other talented writers and test my own writing skills as well.”