The Reedy High School Mind Over Matter club hosted a club meeting on Jan. 21 to begin the registration process for the International Psychology Olympiad. The Olympiad hosts high school students all over the world to compete for medals and recognition, and the members of the club took that challenge.

The Olympiad consists of two rounds; Individual Qualification round and the Team Final Round. The individual competition is an exam that includes objective questions, short-answer questions, and application questions. Team round includes conducting psychological research. The goal of the Olympiad is to win the gold, silver, or bronze medals that are awarded to students with top scores in the exams. The result will be announced in August. The registration is free and any high school students are invited to join.

“I think that an international exam or competition with an exam is a great motivator for going on the pathway of psychology, gathering an external motivation for continuing to branch out,” the club sponsor and psychology teacher Michael Khoury said.

Last year, the top three winning countries were Canada, India, and Pakistan, and students from 40 different countries competed in the competition. This year, the club hopes to put the name of Reedy High School on the list of the winners.

“What we want as a club is to make Reedy the highlighted point of this, like a club that makes sure it’s one of the three that advance,” co-president Montserrat Cedillo said.

The Mind Over Matter club supports students who want to compete in the Olympiad. The club was established this school year and is led by Cedillo, co-president Hasini Harish, secretary Jaehui Hur, and historian Lexy Kendrick. The sponsor of the club is Michael Khoury, who is also an Advanced Placement Psychology teacher. The club is not affiliated with Frisco ISD.

The club prepares for the Olympiad collaboratively with its members. According to the club officers, the club will provide resource packets and virtual reality sessions of role-play. The club also plans presentations from guest speakers to give direct contact with professional psychologists.

“These guest speakers are psychologists, psychiatrists, and members of psychological clinics that can talk about their career, their time as a psychologist, and what they do to help students learn more about the different career options and psychology,” Harish said.

The club does not exist for the sole purpose of preparing for the Olympiad; students who do not compete are welcome to the club as well. Beyond learning more about psychology, its members can also volunteer for the community. In 2024, the members served the community with efforts such as submitting mental health awareness posters and writing holiday cards for psychiatry patients, which counted toward community service hours for students.

The club also plans to create a National Honor Society chapter for psychology: Psi Alpha. Psi Alpha gives recognition, a lifetime career reference, award eligibility, and other benefits to its members, according to the Psi Alpha website. Cedillo said that joining Psi Alpha will be optional for the club members once it is created.

The club is not just for psychology students, but for everyone. The club officers encourage more students to join the club because it can benefit people even if they do not plan to major in psychology.

“Because psychology is so universal and everyone can benefit from it in a certain way, I think that learning psychology, even to a small degree, is very important to understand yourself and the world around you better, because it’s everywhere and everyone is affected by it in some way,” Kendrick said.

Cedillo said that one main purpose of creating the club was for opportunities to pursue psychology in school. Extracurricular for psychology did not exist in the last school year. By creating Mind Over Matter club, students could further explore psychology outside of the classroom.

“I encourage people to recognize themselves and know their own mind and body,” Cedillo said. “And if you’re seeking to do something like that, whether it be, for competition, your future, your career, or just simply to get to know yourself better, then Mind Over Matter is a great club for you.”