High school students often feel heavy anxiety when having to stand up and make a statement to groups of people. These students have found that Mock Trial heavily upped their confidence and speaking skills.
Raghav Pradhan is a senior student and the vice president of the mock trial club, having joined as a sophomore he attributes lots of his success in all areas to the knowledge gained in the club and competitions.
“To be honest, mock trial is one of the most significant, I think, like skill building experiences that I’ve had just because you need to learn so much about like improvising, public speaking, kind of presenting yourself.” Pradhan says. “And it’s all those kinds of like soft skills that end up helping you so much in the real world.”
When looking at mock trial it almost feels like the sort of thing students only do if they want to be a lawyer. But in reality, it’s an avenue many different students may enjoy.
Pradhan was introduced to the club by a good friend, later finding passion in it
“Well, I’m not gonna lie and say I had a passion for law when I was born.” Pradhan said. “Through mock trial I actually ended up gaining a passion for law and I’m planning to study to become a lawyer so (…) Joining mock trial was what actually configurated my desire to do mock trial.”
Sharvi Gautam is a sophomore student who has been in mock trial for about five months, her first and only competition being a nationwide event with a nonprofit called Empire in Chicago.
“It’s just really fun, because there’s people from all over- or like there’s teams from all over the country, I think there’s like 32 teams and they’re from almost like all different states and everything and there’s a team from Canada as well that came.” Gautam said.
This unique challenge has proved to be enriching for students just as much as it is fun.
“I don’t know how to explain it, like I feel like it’s not stuff that you can learn by like reading papers and stuff, it’s in person experience that you can only gain from trials.” Gautam said.
All in all, mock trial provides a diverse experience for students to apply themselves in real courtrooms to learn new things. Skyline’s mock trial team in particular is really talented, lucky for us.
“I would say, to be honest dude if I hadn’t done mock trial, I literally don’t know what I would be like right now. Dude, I wouldn’t even be doing this interview.” Pradhan says.
Applications to join are currently closed but re-open at the end of the school year. For more information, look at Skyline Mock Trial’s Instagram @skyline.mock.trial.