Around my sophomore year of high school, I began joining a numerous amount of clubs thinking it would benefit me when I would have to apply to college. However, as many would expect, I stopped attending the meetings of all but about three clubs. One club that favored over all others is High-Q. This club involved competing against other high schools in a quiz bowl style format similar to the Jeopardy. The most memorable moment occurred senior year as four other members, two advisors, and myself traveled to Washington D.C. to compete for the National Academic Championship. The journey to D.C. began after a school day as we all crowded in a small minivan for the seven-hour ride ahead of us. Most of the time in the car was spent sleeping; …show more content…
The only daunting task we had after arriving at the hotel was to sleep and prepare for a day of full of questions. The next day was the first day of the competitions. I do not recall the scores of each competition, but I do remember having a lot of fun meeting other High-Q members across the country and answering the trivia questions. However, one drawback of the competition was becoming irritated with myself for missing a question about the derivative of arctangent after previously learning about it in Calculus not long before I left school. The disappointment in myself would not have been that considerable, had my calculus teacher not been one of the advisors. Immediately after the competition, our team decided to take advantage of being in Washington D.C. by visiting the monuments. My favorite attraction we visited would have to be the memorial of Thomas Jefferson. I read once that John F. Kennedy held a dinner honoring the Nobel Prize winners of that year and said amusing remark of "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Another memorable moment of the trip was visiting the