As the bell rings for the start of Seminar, students across the school impatiently sit in their classrooms. At the front of the room are two groups of desks flanked by a projector screen. The clock is ticking up to 9:25 a.m. This round of the Trivia Bowl is about to commence.

Trivia Bowl is a yearly tradition dating back to 2015, in which seminars from different classes compete to be crowned the best of their class and even the best of the school.

Seminars are encouraged to come together and work as a team to try and move up in the trivia bowl’s tournament bracket. This can help bring seminars closer together.

“My favorite part is the community and seeing my whole seminar, who don’t really like each other much, now they’re connected and the atmosphere is just amazing,” Isaac Campbell ‘26 said.

A problem that some seminars have is attendance. Many students believe that Seminar isn’t important enough to go to.

“I think a lot of seminars struggle with trying to get students in their classroom in general,” math teacher Austin Bennett said. “I think [the Trivia Bowl] really brings us together again.”

Some seminars have even formed rivalries with others.

“[I’m excited to] make Koy lose,” Bennett seminar member Nakul Choudhary ‘26 said. Over the past three years, they have developed a long-standing rivalry with math teacher Tony Koy’s seminar. This year, Bennett’s seminar printed out photos of Koy, doodled on them, then brought them into their competition to wave at their opponents.

However, other seminars don’t share the same enthusiasm as these.

“I’m hearing things that my other students in my other classes say about Trivia Bowl and how they don’t care about it,” Bennett said. “I don’t get that vibe from our seminar.”

For the seminars that do find meaning in Trivia Bowl and seek to win the competition, there are rewards awaiting the champions.

“For the winning class, there’s a trophy that gets passed around, and their name will go on it,” assistant principal Mandi Zimmerman said.

Along with the new trophy, this year they’re introducing a plaque that will hold the names of all of the past winners. In addition, each of the winning students will receive a ten-dollar gift card.

“We get generous donations for gift cards,” Zimmerman said, “We try to give each kid in that seminar a ten-dollar gift card that they win for competing in Trivia Bowl and winning.”

The Trivia Bowl has proven to be a challenge to run. The two snow days on Nov. 7 and 8, along with the recent internet outage on Nov. 15 delayed the competition by a few days. But, Zimmerman was able to salvage it and keep the competition going.

“We definitely have had to be a little bit flexible,” Zimmerman said, “Luckily, we had built in two days of Seminar where Trivia Bowl wasn’t happening, so we were able to shift things and not miss out on Trivia Bowl.”

Elimination rounds will continue on Dec. 3. They will lead into the class finals, then the school’s final, where the winners will be crowned.

Trivia Bowl represents what seminars are able to do and accomplish with each other, and its nine-year existence proves that it is important to many people across the school.