UIL is an academic competition between different high schools and the students compete in challenging their skills in their chosen events.

The types of events that they compete in are English, history, social studies, math, science, journalism, speech and debate. There are district, regional and state competitions and winning your event or going to state can make you eligible for scholarships

But scholarship money isn’t the only benefit, UIL also gives you the opportunity to meet new people, according to teacher Chasity Johnson, UIL coordinator.

“Others also join for the fellowship and hanging out with people all day as well,” Johnson said. 

During the summer, social studies teacher Penny Barber decided she would want to be a UIL coach. 

“I wanted to head to another club of some sort,” Barber said. “I’ve done class sponsoring in the past, some different smaller clubs, NHS sponsor… [and] I asked if there was a social studies team and found out there wasn’t a coach, so I wanted to do it.” 

Since Barber teaches AP World History for freshmen and sophomore students, she has the advantage of knowing the top social studies kids like junior Hieu Huynh. 

“I haven’t been part of UIL for very long, just a few months,” Huynh said. “When I first joined the UIL social studies team, I joined to get out more and be more involved in school stuff. Just things like that, I was already interested in Mrs.Barber’s class so she let me in.”

Students are given the chance to meet people in UIL and test their abilities and understand more about what class they joined and that’s just what Huynh did. 

“I ended up joining with my friend Andrew, and we’ve been studying the history of The Olympics,” Huynh said. “Things like, notable events and controversies in history like racial equality, women in The Olympics, terrorist attacks like the 1972 Munich Massacre, diplomatic relations, etc.”