Nuno, a participant in our college planning program, was a leader and tutor in our AP Study Group Program. After being offered admission to Swarthmore and being invited to S3P, he graciously agreed to journal his summer experience as a means of exposing our students to the unique opportunities at liberal arts colleges. He joins other students in our program who have shared their fly-in and summer program experiences. In addition to Swarthmore, students in our program have attended a number of highly selective liberal arts colleges: Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Claremont-McKenna, Hamilton, Mount Holyoke, Wesleyan, and Williams.

I was asked to journal my experience at S3P on a day by day basis, unfortunately the workload was a bit heavier than I expected. Not that it is a bad thing to have a lot of work, in fact, I liked it better that way. I’ll use this space to put my experiences on paper. I’ll split the experience into three distinct aspects: class time and studying, college preparation and advice, and social experiences. 

We were to take three preparatory classes set up in a way that emulates a real life college schedule. These classes were math, chemistry, and writing. Math was primarily a review of pre-calculus concepts such as unit conversions, trigonometry, and logarithmic functions. We were given homework for this class everyday but it wasn’t too difficult, just practice of what was discussed in class. The most surprising thing about this class, actually, was the amount of group work. Our teacher, Professor Miller, told us that the standard in a lot of math classes at Swarthmore was that following a lecture section, the class would be split into groups and given problems to solve related to the material that was taught that day. 

The writing class surprised me the most. We were given two books to read: Remembered Rapture by Bell Hooks and Whistling Vivaldi by Claude M. Steele. Class time was mostly taken up by discussion on the required readings each night. The discussion was mostly geared towards how the books themselves were written and effective strategies the authors used, which I liked because it reminded me of my AP Literature class where we spent a lot of time doing the same thing. The books were interesting too so a substantial amount of time was spent on talking about the content of the books. Remembered Rapture was about Bell Hooks’ writing process while Whistling Vivaldi was about Steele’s research into a phenomenon called stereotype threat. We were also given two weekly writing assignments: a blog about anything we wanted and a proper writing assignment. The proper writing assignments ranged from interviewing someone you knew to doing actual scientific research using the library’s resources.

Chemistry had a lecture portion and a lab portion. It was probably the most involved class in the program since we had a project that was directly related to chemistry. At the end of the program we had to present the findings of the series of labs we did throughout the program on a poster board so we were encouraged to pay close attention to what we were learning in this class so that the poster session would be a success. The main focus of the class was learning the effects of micro- and nanoplastics on plants so we mostly learned about things related to that area of chemistry. Additionally, we talked about how to measure samples in a lab, the electromagnetic spectrum, the periodic table, the makeup of molecules, and much more. We had one lab each Wednesday with an exception of the last week where we dedicated the whole time to working on posters and getting advice on how to make our presentations. 

The next aspect of the program was experiences related to college prep and advice for the coming semester. The first major point of connection for these types of conversations was the Navigating Academic Life class we would have each Monday. These were classes held by Ben and Kyra (the people behind the program) that focused on the best ways to succeed in our first semester at Swarthmore and beyond. They shared their life story and how they got through their years at Swarthmore in their first session. The following sessions tackled coping mechanisms for moments where we get overwhelmed during college.

The next point of connection happened every Tuesday with an event called FLI (first-gen/low-income) Tuesdays. This was run by Dean Henry, the dean of first-year students, where  a representative from some on-campus resource would come in and explain their department. We had people come in from the financial aid office, the student employment office, and Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) office. These talks were actually very helpful because now I have direct contact with these offices that prior I was unsure about how to reach out during the school year. Thankfully, during the actual semester there is a similar event but on Friday where students can learn about the resources available on campus which will remind me to continue reaching out for help.

Throughout the program, each student was invited by Dean Henry to have a one on one meeting with her. It was a very chill meeting where she introduced herself and asked us questions about ourselves. The purpose of these meetings was to let us know she was also an available resource during our time at Swarthmore. We would also have an opportunity to ask her questions about our time at college. The main questions I asked regarded reaching out to academic advisors and managing my time, some things I recognized as my weaknesses. She was very nice and gave me some pretty good advice.

There was also a lot of talk about summer research which, at Swarthmore, is available to freshmen in their first summer. They really encouraged us to seek out summer opportunities by talking to professors running research and going to career fairs held in the fall. They talked about the deadlines for signing up for summer opportunities being in the spring and how the race usually starts in the winter. We also got to visit a couple of labs running throughout the summer. I was able to visit the microbiology, neurobiology, and engineering labs. The students doing research came from every point in the college journey. They were also very friendly and answered any question we asked.

Finally, the social aspect of the program. Since our group was so small, we got to know each other pretty well. There is an intersection between our academic lives and social lives, so the study hall time actually became a time where we got to socialize. Outside of that, we had plenty of free time between classes. There was a ping pong table near the dining hall so after lunch and dinner we would always go to play ping pong. On Saturdays, we had field trips to locations around Pennsylvania. We went to a town called Media nearby, we went to the Franklin Institute, and we went to Longwood Gardens. I had a lot of fun at each of these field trips. We were also able to have events like movie marathons, talent shows, video tournaments, and more at the dorm that involved everyone. By the end of the program I’d say we all became pretty close friends.

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