My experience at the state National History Day competition

National History Day, otherwise known as NHD, is a competition that allows students in grades 4-12 to compete in nine different categories. These categories include group and individual performances, websites, exhibits, and documentary, with an individual only paper option as well. I was the only one from H-B who made it past the district level and was able to compete in the state competition this past weekend. My category is the individual performance, which comes with its own set of challenges—it’s small. 

This complicated how I thought of the state competition.

My journey to the competition started a little rocky, with my dress nearly breaking. One important piece of information—it was the same two other people from districts, three total. At the district level the top three moved onto the state competition, and in my case there were three participants, so all of us moved on. At states, the top two move onto nationals, meaning that me, the third place winner at districts, had to upset one of the winners to make it to nationals.  

The morning of the competition was a little chaotic, but one empty bottle of hairspray and one almost lost water bottle later, I had made it to the venue. NHD’s Virginia state competition was held at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. I was the second to go of the three, which allowed me to get a sense of how the competition was going, especially in-terms of post-performance interviews with the judges. Now, these don’t technically impact the overall scores in the actual judging sections, however they do help let the judges know more about your project and can help provide more thought which could potentially reflect in scoring. This is especially important in the individual performance category where you are the representation of your work.  

This now left around six hours until the results were announced. Eventually, after scoring some good seats by sitting around in places I was most likely not supposed to be in, the awards started. It started with the additional awards that individuals could apply for in certain categories such as Virginia history, the Navy, women, or LGBTQ+ categories as well as several others. After that the announcements on placement started, with groups first and performances last of the group. This meant that for me that meant sitting in a hot crowded room for an hour and half while the tension builds—was I good enough to beat the people who beat me? 

After all but two Senior Division Categories and company Elementary categories were called, it led down to the individual performances and papers. They called the third place winner first—only it wasn’t me. This meant that I would advance onto Nationals, I was called next as the second place winner.

I will now be representing H-B at the National Competition with my individual performance on June 14-18 hosted by University of Maryland in College Park.