Athens Debate

Athens Debate

Finally Expanding to Fremont and Saratoga!
"A refreshing, innovative, and highly-successful approach to debate education"

Athens Debate is quickly making waves as the best place to learn Speech and Debate in the Bay Area. Their approach to debate education is innovative, thoughtful, and refreshingly focused on deep learning.

Unlike other programs, Athens places a premium on hiring instructors that come from top pedigrees like Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, and other top-tier institutions. Having a successful debate history isn't enough for Athens, to teach there you need to be a world class instructor and also someone who can serve as a role model for students to encourage them to unlock their full potential. Many of Sachin's (Founder of Athens) students have gone on to graduate from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT and are now doing great things. One of his former students writes, "I graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude with a B.A. in philosophy from UCLA. Were it not for Sachin Jain's debate coaching, neither of these things would have happened".

Athens was founded by Sachin Jain who used his experience in debate to create change via a career in professional politics. Sachin has 16 years of experience competing and teaching Speech and Debate. His students have achieved great success at the local, state, and national levels. He completed his undergraduate degree Summa Cum Laude from UC Berkeley and his Masters of Public Policy from the top ranked policy school in the country, UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. What we liked most about Sachin is that he used his experience in Speech and Debate to find success in the real world. He has worked in political and policy capacities at the United States Senate, White House, San Jose City Council, the Governor of California, President of the UC System, and the Mayor of San Jose. There's no better way to make debate come alive for students than by showing how what their debating about actually connects to the real world.

Athen's students have done phenomenally well. Just this past month, Athens took 26 students who have never competed in a debate tournament to their first competition. Most of the other students at the tournament had 1 to 3 years of competitive experience. More than half of Athens students won 75% of their rounds and 1 first-time student ended up going undefeated to win the tournament! The reason for Athens' success seems clear to us: Athens invests in creating highly knowledgable smart debaters and smart debaters end up winning debate rounds. They believe that with the right approach, debate can become a vehicle that channels natural curiosity towards some of life's most challenging subjects and vexing questions. At Athens, student curiosity is fueled through an approach that prioritizes real learning and content mastery above anything else. In placing a premium on the mastery of logic, writing, philosophy, communication, and public policy, students equip themselves to tackle any issue. They don't teach students what to think, but how to think. Through an innovative curriculum, students learn to ask the right questions, follow their curiosities, and learn through a "no shortcuts" approach. By engaging in vibrant discussions, constructive games, practice debates, short lectures, a robust online platform, and a mix of creative teaching methods, their students develop the toolkit they need to find success in debate, the classroom, their future careers and beyond.

Athens currently has locations in Fremont, Palo Alto, Saratoga, and San Francisco. In their first year, Athens served students in Palo Alto and San Francisco and have grown by 525% in just one year since their inaugural cohort. After repeated calls to move down to the East Bay and South Bay, Athens has finally opened new locations in Fremont and Saratoga. We are very excited to have their innovative approach to debate education here.