Christina first began to participate in the program her Junior year of high school at Martin Luther King Early College and she quickly fell in love with the challenge of debate.
Prior to debate, Christina had not found an extracurricular activity in high school that she truly enjoyed and wanted to see through to the end. She played volleyball and ran track in high school but found that neither sport was nearly as fulfilling as debate. Christina thrived in DUDL and discovered that she could speed read, actively listen to others to pick out important points in their arguments and respectfully disagree. Her Senior year of high school, she continued debate and began to see the fruits of her labor when she and her partner won thier way to the National tournament in New York City.
Christina feels that the experiences that DUDL granted her as well as many other Denver city youth has been very precious and will always be a streak of light in her memories of high school. Today she is a Senior at Metropolitan State University of Denver becoming an elementary school teacher and, “gives much credit to the DUDL program for [her] success in college”. Christina enjoys returning to DUDL events and being able to judge at tournaments and see high school students discover talents and weaknesses that they were unaware of before participating in DUDL. At the tournaments she feels that she gets the privilege to watch students' self esteem spike and their confidence in their speeches shine through over the course of the debate season.
“I am extremely grateful for the Denver Urban Debate league and the effort that is put forth every year to keep the program alive for future high school students. I hope to judge at many more tournaments and produce many more DUDL alumni.”
