By Tracy Scott, Carolina Chapter Member


Why did I wait so long to be an STC Carolina Competition judge? Honestly, sheer fear of not knowing what to do is why I decided to stop reading about being an STC judge and just do it this year. Often times, we wait until we are ready to do something and then never get around to doing it for one reason or another. Experience is often times overrated, and the best people are usually the ones who have a fresh eye, excitement and energy to try something new. So, this year I refused to let fear of not knowing or be the only one who would be new to being an STC judge hold me back.

The Saturday training was excellent. I expected the typical cut and dry: here’s what you do, here’s how you do it, now run like the wind and do it type of training. But that was not the case. The two hour ~~ not four hour ~~ training session was engaging, informative and clear. The role playing and exercises that we did to better understand the type of entries we would be judging and how to fairly and objectively judge each entry made sense.

Although I make my living from learning and turning very technical content into learning objects, it was nice to learn something new without the struggle. Most of all, the support from my two teammates, Josh (our leader) and Anita, made it an effortless, fun task because we all came with the same level of interest in the entries we judged as well as the vision of STC. It always feels good to be on the same page as the people you work with because relationships are half the battle, no matter where you work or what you do. Thankfully, I’m glad that I got tired of waiting to be ready to be a judge and stepped out to do it when I was not ready.

Tracy can be reached at traysway at gmail dot com.