Students from the Muslim Student Association Club (MSA) will participate in the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST) on March 30th and 31st. Every Tuesday, the MSA holds meetings that focus on different topics while incorporating activities.
In 2011, the Salon Club was transformed into the MSA and members of the club began competing in MIST. MIST was initially introduced in Texas, and college students organized the competition for high school students once word of it reached New York. MIST is a tournament that allows students of any faith or religion to participate in different competitions based on their interests. The president of the MSA, senior Nowshin Arif stated, “Everyone will always find something for themselves through MIST, whether you’re an artistic person, or if whether you like jeopardy, math, or basketball.”
MIST takes course over a weekend and, on the first day, all participants must complete registration. Students in art competitions will have their interviews. Throughout Saturday, other competitions will take place in brackets, including debate, improv, Math Olympics, and MIST Quiz Bowl (similar to jeopardy). On Sunday, group competitions will occur, consisting of singing (Nasheed), a science fair, short film, social media, business venture, and community service. In between those days, art, writing, oratory, and Quran competitions will go on at the same time. Basketball competitions will be held at a later date.
Before being able to compete in MIST, there are tryouts for each of the competitions in order to select the students’ best suitable representatives. At the same time, those who are eliminated from the tryouts are able to find alternative spots on the team, so everyone who wishes to be in MIST is included. Sophomore Ripa Begum stated, “The theme for the tryouts is diversity, which I believe is easy to work with since the topic of diversity could be portrayed and interpreted in various different forms.”
The theme for MIST in the previous year was The Valor of Mercy. For the social media competition, our school’s participants produced campaigns on different platforms portraying this theme. Our school placed in the regional and national competitions for MIST with this challenge, a consistent victory for the team. Students from our school placed in regionals and nationals for original oratory, as well as first place in the city for girls’ basketball.
“We place very well every single year. Even though we’re a small school, we’re really strong and it means a lot to us when we place,” stated Nowshin. As a matter of fact, MIST participants from our school placed third in MIST Bowl last year, for the first time in five years. In 2016, our school reached the quarter-finals, and in 2017, they reached the semi-finals. Sophomore Filisa Mohabir stated, “Last year was my first year participating in MIST, and I took part in the competition for MIST Bowl. I felt incredible to share that moment with them since we put our best efforts forward and we worked really hard to be successful.”
For this year, the MSA and its MIST participants hope to place higher in the competition, and to collectively progress as a school. Sophomore Riya Nobi stated, “One way we could do better in MIST is to take more time to practice together… It might be difficult to meet up frequently, but I feel like it’s something we could definitely work on.”
Overall, MIST holds great importance to its participants, and the competition proves to make our school more recognized with great placements every year. Nowshin concluded, “I’m looking forward to competing in my last year of MIST, and helping everyone with their competitions. I really want to see everyone do well, and get medals if they have never won before, but most importantly have a great time.”
