This past summer five Ridge students competed at HOSA Nationals in Houston, Texas. At Ridge, HOSA is a Career and Technical Student Association that focuses on the healthcare field.

Throughout the year, students are able to compete in different events and competitions that will allow them to qualify for Nationals. The two main types of competition are tests and presentations, on a variety of topics all related to healthcare.

Mountain Ridge’s junior, Aryan Tuli, was able to qualify for Nationals by placing third in the state. He competed in the test event on medical terminology. This test consisted of 100 questions and 20 tie-breaker questions with a time limit of an hour.

Sraavya Devarapally, a senior at Ridge, was another student who made it to Nationals. At state, she competed in the team presentation event on creative problem solving where they placed second. This competition involved the group having to test to qualify and then coming up with a solution that is presented to judges.

At state, their group presented on sickle cell disease. Devarapally says that their goal was to, “raise more awareness to that cause and figure out how to advertise it so that people would be able to help out.”

Although neither of the students placed at Nationals, they both enthusiastically recommended joining HOSA to get a chance to have this experience. The chapter stayed together at a hotel, went out for dinner, and got to meet a lot of new people.

Tuli would recommend this experience, “a hundred percent. It’s really fun… It’s a really good experience and it teaches you a lot of skills about life.”