SIG, Princeton Reflection
My feelings about the Summer Institute for the Gifted before I left for the sleep-away school, were: nervousness, worry and fatigue. I felt the opposite while I was there. I had a fascinating and memorable time. A few months before SIG, my mom announced that I was going to Princeton sleep-away school for 3 weeks. The minute I heard that, I thought my summer was ruined. Who would rather go back to school during the summer than relax at home, feeling great? I groaned and moaned thinking about going to something that feels like boarding school. At least I had a cruise to Barcelona with my cousins to look forward to before the terrible Princeton camp, I thought to myself. I felt angry after the end of the cruise. I thought, “All my favorite vacations are over and the grand finale of my summer is going to a challenging summer school.” I heard from a friend, who came from a sleep-away school similar to SIG said that he worked on the same subject for seven hours straight, which frightened me.
After attending SIG, I gained an entirely different perspective. As I walked in my dormitory on the first Sunday and was welcomed by two friendly faces, I realized that I already made two friends. I introduced myself to other boys in my counselor’s group and in a few days, it seemed that I had been with them my entire life. I was also welcomed by the large buffet at the Princeton dining hall. There was a large soda fountain that consisted all kinds of sweet beverages, many kinds of new foods that varied every day, a salad bar, and my favorite, ice cream. Free ice cream seemed satisfying, as if I was back on a cruise.
SIG was a wonderful boarding school learning experience. I wake each day with my roommates with the same comfortable greetings. “Hey what’s up Eric?” Then I start each weekday with the same five exciting periods: Writer’s Palette, Chemistry, Time Travel, What’s Your Point, and Word Power. In Writer’s Palette, we wrote many poems and stories including any different styles of writing, such as Point of View, sensory writing, extended metaphors, memoirs and a lot more every day. Even though the homework was optional, I did it anyway because there’s no point in coming to SIG if you don’t do the work. We did many simple experiments during Chemistry class including experiments on atoms and elements. Chemistry seemed dull at first, but when we started doing fun experiments, I had a fabulous time. The Theories of time travel class was really interesting. I learned about paradox and I learned that time travel is actually possible. All the scientists need is a device that can travel faster than light that can change the earth’s path. Time Travel class was a brilliant learning experience and I had an exciting time.
I did a time travel project pretending I was a company that invented a time traveling machine. From my opinion, debate class was the hardest out of the five classes. The first week I had to do an impromptu speech. They gave us a topic and we had five minutes to prepare for it. After the five-minute preparation, we had to give a two-minute speech. I actually did pretty well. The second and third week, we had to do a Lincoln Douglass debate (1 on 1) and a team debate. My topics were: if the Death Penalty was morally justified and if Affirmative action should be practiced in schools. I was on the affirmative side for each of them. After each debate I processed what the teacher said in my mind.
“Eric, remember to speak in a louder and more expressive tone and put good structure in your speech, keep that.”
The debates took days and nights of research, but it was worth it at the end when I won both debates. Every time I walked into Word Power class, I see a considerate smiling teacher and many cheerful students ready to learn. Word Power was a fun class in which to play a lot of word games. We not only did vocabulary for the long three weeks; we also did lots of writing, too. My teacher was supportive and made great comments on my writing as I read my writing out loud in class. She liked when I added many details in my writing. Word Power was a mix of vocabulary and writing. I remember listening to my Word Power teacher telling me, “Eric, I appreciate you participating often in class and putting all your effort in every day.” That really made me feel proud.
After the 5 periods each day, I had recreational hour. Rec hour included basketball, Frisbee, swimming, arts and crafts, or relaxing in the dorm. The majority of the camp chose the dorm to spend time in, almost every day, including me. During dorm time, I hung out with my jubilant friends. We played cards, watched movies and played other activities when we had time. That was just it: we didn’t have much time to goof around or relax. We either choose dorm time during recreational hour or we had no time at all. It was like an ordinary day at boarding school. Dinner came after rec hour and then our evening activity. Evening activities varied each night. There were counselor activities, performances, games and more. I liked evening activities and looked forward to the fun every day. I returned back to the dormitories each night to have a blast with my friends, watching movies or just hanging out. I wish I could have more time having fun, but that was how much time an average boarding school student would have, so I was going to have to get use to it. The weekends at SIG were the best. On Saturday we went to Six Flags and Times Square during the day then watched movies at night. Saturdays were my favorite at SIG because it was the fun day. Sunday was just a lazy day to catch some more sleep and do a couple activities.
On the second weekend was parent visitation day and I was glad to see my parents again. They didn’t change but they said that I had changed. My parents said I became more responsible and more independent. Weekends were great until the last Saturday. It was the day to say goodbye to my friends and head on home. I wanted to go home, but on the other hand, SIG was much better than I thought and maybe I wanted to stay one more week. Before, I wished the lousy summer boarding camp to be over, and now I want to stay a little longer. Don’t judge a book by its cover, I remind myself. I hope I can return back next year Summer Institute for the Gifted.
