UNAIR NEWS – Ksatria Airlangga (students of Universitas Airlangga) continue to demonstrate their commitment to making achievements and making the alma mater proud. On this occasion, a proudest achievement came from Airlangga Debating Society (ADS) student activity unit (UKM), which managed to win Third Place at Universitas Ciputra Debate Competition (UCDC) 2022. The event themed Empowering Education through Pancasila was held by Universitas Ciputra on Sunday, May 22, 2022.

Achmad Ghiffari, a class of 2019 student of Communications, and Wendy Balinda Tiantini, a class of 2019 student of English Language and Literature made the achievement.

Debate system

Achmad Ghiffari explained to UNAIR NEWS this UCDC 2022 uses the British Parliamentary debate system. Each session presents four teams in the debate competition, two as the government party (Opening Government and Closing government) and the other two as the opposition party (Opening Opposition and Closing Opposition).

Furthermore, the man known well as Ari also stated that the competition consisted of two rounds, preliminary and elimination rounds.

“Thank God, in the first round, Wendy and I got first place among four teams. So we got three points. Then at the second round, we got the second place and achieved two points,” he stated.

“Then, in the third round, we won second and got two points. Then, Wendy and I finished in the third place out of four teams in the fourth round. As a result, Wendy and I passed the preliminary round at the seventh rank with 623 points, with the winning point of 9 points,” added Ari.

Furthermore, Ari and Wendy managed to win the quarter-final round or the top 16 along with UGM, so they have the right to go on to the semifinal round or top 8.

“We passed to the top 8 round, so in this BP system, two teams passed. At the semifinal, we met UGM, UNPAD, and UNPAR teams. Again, UGM and our team proceeded to the final round,” he said.

“At the final round, we fight UI, UGM 1, UGM 2, and thank God even though we did not win the first place, we got Second Runner Up or the Third Place,” Ari mentioned.

Tips and trick

At the end of the interview session, they did not forget to give tips and tricks for participating in the debate competition. According to Ari, the most important thing about the debate competition is the preparation, such as reading many debate materials, including journals, articles, news, and many others.

“We cannot just be chained into one type of reading, but we must also read about feminism, social, economic, politics, and other topics as many as possible. So, Wendy and I compiled the reading result to a file containing the materials for the competition,” stated the Communication student.

Moreover, Wendy added that besides material enrichment, they also read and watched debate content, such as debating tips and tricks, how to speak properly, and how to give a good argument. Later, debate training is usually done with sparring, independent training, case building training, and asking for feedback from the coach or seniors.

“For the debate itself, our mind must be in play because we never knew who our opponents are. So get your mind ready, whoever your opponent is, don’t get caught off guard, don’t be afraid too soon,” the English Language and Literature student said.

The last tip is on bonding with teammates. Do not blame others or get angry because of failure but reflect and ask for feedback or suggestions from the jury. Listen more, compromise, and understand each other. (*)

Author: Rafli Noer Khairam

Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh