One of the best parts of the YDA is the connections you make with fellow Debaters! The YDA community serves as a support network, whether in job searching, classwork, or just life. This cute picture was taken by Alex Abarca (‘24) when he was working with Arya Nalluri (‘24.5) and Wendy Zhang (‘25) on their S&DS 230 Final Projects!

Former Presidents Ellie Singer (‘22) and Cameron Chacon (‘23) toasted at The YDA’s annual Senior Toasting and YDA Banquet 2022. The YDA has many traditions that we can trace back to decades ago, and we constantly are coming up with new ones. We have an annual return celebration, Novice Initiation, our elections Banquet (which we call Smoker for reasons we can explain), and an end-of-the-year celebration.

Did someone say meals?! Every week, the YDA hosts a private team dinner, but in case that’s not enough YDA Time, we also have weekly “Lunchtags,” where we challenge YDA members to grab lunch with each other, vibes, and take cute, silly pictures. Here, you can see Eric Tu (‘25), Maia Decker (‘24), and Shyla Summers (‘24) after a chill lunch tag! We also have affinity group dinners and even sponsor something called YDBoba (where groups can, you guessed it, grab boba and be reimbursed!)

Every Thursday, we hold “Office hours“ where we have presentation nights, watch Single’s Inferno together, and even have casual debates. We have these events among just the team, or we host mixers with other organizations such as Yale Effective Altruism and the Alexander Hamilton Society.

When participating in APDA debates every weekend, you are more than likely to meet the same amazing people to compete against in those tournaments. These people are some of the best debaters in the world, and not only can you debate against them, but you can even debate WITH them (something we call hybriding!)

TLDR: The biggest takeaway is that the YDA values community over everything else. We think that what makes the YDA so unique is that we all like hanging out with each other doing things; whether that’s debating, grabbing a meal, having a chaotic car ride to a tournament, or just working together, it doesn’t matter! And that’s what we call the YDCommunity <3