Students at Townsend Harris High School are looking forward to competing in the upcoming New York Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST) for the 15th year in a row. As MIST approaches, excitement from the prospective competitors is growing. The wide scope of competitions offered, ranging from debate and sports to 3D art and photography, allows for MIST hopefuls to compete in categories that fit their specific interests.
MIST’s Sports Weekend took place on February 24 and 25 at the NYC Muslim Center (Masjid ‘Eesa ibn Maryam).
Sadeea Morshed, Muslim Student Association (MSA) President (and Classic Editor-in-Chief) said, “The competitions are all the same as previous years, but they’ve introduced volleyball this year, which we are quite excited about as we have sports teams for a lot of Mist Sports categories (Boys and Girls Basketball and Volleyball), something that our team did not have in previous years.”
On Sports Weekend, the Townsend Harris MIST team, Harrislam, placed 2nd in Girls Volleyball and 3rd in Boys Volleyball.
Another change in MIST scheduling is when competitions are taking place. Although the sports weekend took place last week, the general tournament with all the other competitions will be held in late April.
“I think the biggest change would be the timing of MIST itself. In previous years, it was held in February or March, whereas this year, it’s in late April. Whether that’s good or bad, we have yet to see because while we do get more time, it’s also close to APs, so we hope we get our team prepared sooner,” said Sadeea.
MSA Vice President (and Sci & Tech editor) Shayra Shoshi said, “There are different ways to prepare for each competition, and we have resources such as the rulebook and addendum to prepare. In terms of how we prepare specifically, it depends on the competition. Some of them, like improv, debate, extemporaneous speaking, original oratory, and other speaking competitions require practice. Others are just submission competitions like art so they don’t require practice. Currently, we are still doing tryouts so we still need to establish schedules for practice for the tryouts that require it.”
Sophomore Thaseena Anjum chose Improv as her main competition category “because it requires you to think on the spot and communicate with your team and you have to incorporate body language as well as your voice and a plethora of other elements. I’m gonna try and watch as many videos from past MIST seasons to try and get a gist of what’s expected from me and how I can improve my performance.”
Not only are there new schedule changes and event additions, many of this year’s members are new to the competition.
Freshman Nour Mohamed said, “I feel that MIST is a fun way to interact with other members of the club [Muslim Students Association (MSA)], as well as an efficient method of sharing our talents and knowledge.”
