SkillsUSA

The most recent volunteering experience my group and I participated in was an event held at Germanna Community College.  It was a competition called Skills USA and was for high school age students competing in trade skills, such as cosmetology or auto mechanics.  I was assigned the job of judging the skills section of the competition.  This meant that the students came and gave a presentation of their particular skill - what is was, why it was important, how it was performed, etc.  My entire group was not needed judging the same event so it was only myself and one other classmate with three other judges.  Overall it was an interesting experience and I enjoyed observing the students and how they responded throughout the competition.

However, there were a few things about the experience that I did not enjoy; particularly the complete lack of organization surrounding the event.  That may be an unfair assessment as I did not engage with the other areas at the event but it was especially true in my area.  The chair of my contest was completely disorganized and was unable to answer any of our basic questions surrounding the event, having to seek clarification from someone else.  We were given no guidance regarding what we were judging, the criteria which we should be using to judge, or even our interactions with the contestants themselves.  As a result, we were not allowed to give feedback after the presentations, something I think the students would have really benefited from and I would have liked to have been able to do.  Despite all this, I did enjoy the event and would attend and judge again if asked on the condition that I was the acting chair of my particular area in order to ensure a more structured approach to the judging and therefore a more helpful and worthwhile experience for those involved.