BDL Camp 2026 — A place for students to experience personal growth, to work collaboratively with others, to experience the joys of winning, losing, and many other emotions.

The Boston Debate League’s FREE* Debate Camp provides an excellent opportunity for students to spend time this summer engaged in debate and argumentation, to develop their public speaking and leadership skills, and to learn about the Policy Debate topic for next year. Camp has been instrumental to students’ growth as debaters, public speakers, and leaders on their debate teams, with camp participants often assuming a mentoring role within the team and bringing back the skills learned at camp to their debate community.

But most importantly, camp is a place for personal growth, to work collaboratively with others, to experience the joys of winning, losing, and many other emotions—such as struggling to learn a new skill and eventually succeeding. And, of course we saved the best for last, it’s a place to have fun. One of our values as an organization is joy in learning, and during camp, the JOY is emphasized—believing that no matter how good the content is, if students are not having fun and enjoying the process, we’re not living up to our values.

We look forward to connecting with students and engaging them in safe, community-building activities. Ultimately, we hope debaters leave learning a little bit more about the world, but our real goal is for them to leave camp learning a lot more about themselves.