User:Zsg11

Zsg11 has competed in Pennsylvania Science Olympiad since the 2014 season. From 2014-2017 she competed as a 6th-9th grader at Good Hope Middle School. In 2018, she became the first former-Good Hope member to make the Cumberland Valley High School team under its new coaching, and has competed from 2018-2019 and plans to compete in her (sadly) senior year in 2020.

2014
This was Zsg11's first year in Science Olympiad, and she was in 6th grade. It was also the first year Good Hope Middle School fielded a team in over a decade. However, the 10-person team only competed in 12 events, and didn't have much success, getting 12th in the Central Region. She was very unaware of what Science Olympiad was, not knowing that there are State and National competitions, or even medals. She competed in three events: Can't Judge a Powder, Experimental Design, and Road Scholar. Despite not medaling at all this year, 2014 sparked a love for Science Olympiad that would motivate it her to compete for the next six years.

2015
This was Zsg11's second year of Science Olympiad. She was in 7th grade, yet still had a leadership role within the club. This year, the Good Hope team was more competitive and was actually able to field a full team, along with 1 alternate. Zsg11 again competed in Can't Judge a Powder, Experimental Design, and Road Scholar, and also picked up Picture This, which was her favorite event that year. She didn't expect much going into regionals, and was just really excited to compete again, as it had been over a year. However, much to the surprise of both Zsg11 and her entire team, Good Hope Middle School improved by 8 places in the competition, securing 4th place, and making states for the first time in many years! Zsg11 herself won two medals, 4th place in both Experimental Design (her first medal ever!) and Picture This, despite believing she'd bombed the latter, as her team had only guessed 4/25 terms correctly. The team advanced to the Pennsylvania State Competition where Zsg11 filled in for Entomology, but failed to medal in any of her events. However, she reflects that this was probably her happiest year of Science Olympiad, as there were no expectations, every little success was celebrated, she met some of her best friends (to this day), and her team was incredibly close.

2016
This was Zsg11's third year of Science Olympiad as an 8th grader. She again competed in Experimental Design, Picture This, and Road Scholar, the latter of which she'd grown to hate but was forced to do since she had experience, and picked up Fossils. In 2016, the coach became less involved, and the entire team was run by a student committee of 4 8th graders. Zsg11 was the secretary of the committee, and did a majority of the work organizing and motivating her team. Because she had to spend so much time coordinating things for her team, she didn't have enough time to work on her events, and did not receive any medals this year, bombing most of her events. Zsg11 and her team were convinced that they had missed States that year, because they had won fewer medals than in 2015. However, her team was still able to make States, earning 5th in the region. After this year, the person who had coached Good Hope Middle School had stepped down, and a new coach took her place. Zsg11 assumed this would be the end of her Science Olympiad career, and was happy that her last year was surrounded by her best friends, despite not being as successful as she'd hoped in her events.

2017
In 2017, Zsg11 returned to Good Hope to compete as a 9th grader. She began attending Cumberland Valley High School, and decided to try out for its team, as she realized she wasn't ready to let go of competing, but after going to an informational meeting for the CV team, she discovered it was hopeless, as they didn't accept freshmen. Slightly upset, Zsg11 began talking to one of her Good Hope teammates, an 8th grader at the time, and was invited to join the team as its only freshman. Since most of the 2014-2016 Good Hope team (or as Zsg11 calls them the "OG Good Hope") had either aged out of Division B, or simply quit doing Science Olympiad, she was the member on the team with the most experience, and she began helping out her younger teammates understand the process of competing and preparing for events. This year, Zsg11 also attended her first invitational, Little Tiger. She was incredibly excited for this, as she had only ever competed against Pennsylvania teams at Regionals and States. This season, she again competed in Experimental Design and Road Scholar, and picked up Microbe Mission, which was her favorite event this year, due to her interest in microbiology. She also filled in for Fast Facts at Little Tiger(she was selected to fill in the day of the invy), which she had wanted to do at Regionals and States, but it unfortunately conflicted with events she wanted more. Despite her experience with Science Olympiad, Zsg11 still didn't truly understand how to study for Science Olympiad, and decided to focus more on school, and she failed to medal again this year. Because her team had little experience, she was unsure that Good Hope would be able to maintain its 2-year streak of making states, but luckily for them, they managed 7th place in the region, barely advancing to the state competition. During the state awards ceremony, Zsg11 remembers feeling very sad, as she believed it to be her last one ever. She hadn't medaled in any of her events, and the Cumberland Valley Science Olympiad Coach had stepped down, and there wasn't going to be a team next year. Her generalized feeling of sadness during awards made her miss out on cheering for Eagle View Middle School, who had gotten 3rd in the state that year. In retrospect, she quite regrets this, as she would proceed to work with and be on a team with many of the 2017 Eagle View team participants. Overall, Zsg11 loved her experience competing for Good Hope Middle School, and often flexes her "humble beginnings" to her CV teammates, believing she's morally superior to her teammates from Eagle View since she failed to makes States once, often joking how she misses the lightheartedness of Good Hope in comparison to the intense expectations of Cumberland Valley. However, she recognizes that winning is a lot more fun than hoping against hope that she medaled, and wouldn't trade her current team CV for anything--except maybe a nats bid ; )

2018
The week following States 2017, Zsg11 received an email from the Eagle View coach--he had decided to begin coaching the Cumberland Valley High School Team and wanted her to try out! Zsg11 immediately replied "yes" and regards that email as the best she'd ever received. She realized right away that Eagle View/Cumberland Valley was ran a lot differently from Good Hope. They met every day during the school year and even held summer practices, which she attended excitedly. Come August, she had made the team! This was the first time Zsg11 had ever had to try out, as "OG Good Hope" had a policy in which veterans had an automatic spot on the team, and everyone made the team her 6th grade year. However, she was the only Good Hope person to make the team, which intimidated her, as she barely knew her 14 teammates. It took awhile, but eventually the Eagle View kids took her in, and became her family. Her events were Experimental Design and Microbe Mission again, as well as Rocks and Minerals, and she filled in for Chemistry Lab at regionals. She attended two new invitationals, The Battle at Valley Forge, and MCBarons. This year proved to be quite difficult, as she was only a sophomre, and only 2 members of the 15 had any Division C experience. At MCBarons, though, she finally broke her two year dry spell of not medaling, and medaled 3rd in Experimental Design. At regionals, the team got 2nd place by only four points, and Zsg11 medaled in both Experimental Design and Microbe Mission, but bombed Chemistry Lab. After regionals, the team was quite discouraged, as very few of its members had never gotten less than 1st at regionals. Zsg11, however, wasn't as disappointed, as she had never done as well as second place in a tournament before. The team worked incredibly hard between Regionals and States, and Zsg11 was unfortunately one point off from her first states medal, which would have been in Experimental Design. Overall, this was a rebuilding and a learning year for Zsg11. She had lots of expectations when she had made the team, as the coach and 14/15 members were from Eagle View, whom she'd looked up to as a SciOly legend for many years. The team expected to go far in the beginning due to Eagle View's previous success, and ended up 10th in Pennsylvania. While she was upset at the time, Zsg11 recognizes how significant their achievements--going from not making States to getting 10th place in one year--were.