2007

Summer 2007

Glimpses of China

Charles Shoener '10

I was very fortunate to go to China for 6 weeks this summer to participate in the Glimpses of China program – 4 weeks of the trip was for an educational and cultural experience, and 2 weeks was for traveling to major cities. It was an eye opening experience for me and was very different from anything I had ever done before.

Arriving in Shanghai, I didn’t know what to expect. I was excited to be there, but fearful as well, especially when I had no previous exposure to the Chinese language. But, the first week in Shanghai was dedicated to teaching us about the city and some basics Chinese words. We learned how to use the subway, how to take taxis, and how to use some basic phrases that would be essential to spending time in China. Within a few days, I was able to understand the city layout and use the mass transit comfortably, and best of all, I gained confidence in attempting to communicate with Chinese people. The Chinese language is fascinating to me – every single character has a shape and meaning, and the same word can mean many different things depending on what letters we give emphasis on. Being in Shanghai, in the heart of China, interacting directly with Chinese people, enjoying their common foods everyday, seeing the new and fancy side of new China filled with wealth and at the same time seeing the struggling poor common people of China was the best way to learn the Chinese language and experience truly what China is like.

Each week consisted of six class days and one full free day with many excursions throughout the week to areas of interest, such as the Shanghai Museum. The classes we were able to take ranged from “New City” a survey of Shanghai’s changing architecture to “Jews in Shanghai” to “The Cultural Revolution.” We would often have open discussions and debates following the lectures. All these classes were taught by the most respected Chinese professors in their fields. For example, I was able to take a course about International Relations, a topic I have been interested in for many years, which was taught by a professor who was involved in the “Six Party Talks” about nuclear weapons in North Korea. I was able to learn so much about China’s stance on many world issues while also having the opportunity to express my own opinions. I also took a course called “One Party.” This class taught me the about how the one party system works in the Chinese government. Even better, I was able to visit the founding place of the Chinese Communist Party which allowed me to make a real connection about the Chinese party and allowed me to see the contrast to our system in the States. This made me feel much more appreciative to our open and free system.

China has become a fusion of new and old cultures with Asian and European influences mixed in. I was able to see many different areas of Shanghai; these ranged from the touristy Nanjing Road to small neighborhoods tucked away on side streets, representing this fusion of cultures. I was also able to see how the gap had grown between the modern and older cultures; from the flashing lights of the Pearl Tower in Pudong to housing complexes that had one single place to get tap water; Glimpses of China exposed me to the different facades of China. This is the program to be in if you are interested in discovering what China is like; through studying history and traditions and having an open mind I was able to understand some of the real issue that China is facing.

Glimpses of China was one of the best summer programs I have ever participated in and I highly recommend it for all high-school students interested in China.

Where There Be Dragons

Zoe Weinberg '09 

I am sitting under a baobab tree scribbling my jumbled thoughts on a sticky, ripped sheet of notebook paper and fanning the coals of a small fire under a cheaply-made tin teapot.

The tea's bubbling with the sweet, thick, highly-caffeinated, syrupy "ataya" that I've become accustomed to drinking during the late afternoon. I'm in the remote Kolda region of central Senegal. To be perfectly honest, I'm still somewhat incredulous that I landed in West Africa for the summer with 11 other high-schoolers and three former Peace Corps volunteers who are leading our group in this journey throughout Senegal, introducing us to its people, history, culture, music, language, traditions, and issues in development and education.

I am even more bewildered now to find myself the only foreigner here in Sara Souma, an intimate agrarian village of fewer than one hundred where I am living with a family for eight days. My fellow travelers are scattered throughout the region, each assigned to a different family in a different village; the closest is a thirty-minute walk from me. Today is day five of our eight-day homestay. By now all feelings of initial shock have dissipated and I'm settling into the rhythmic, slow pace of life, happy to slow down after weeks of face-paced travel.

My Senegalese mother, Fatmata, is very shy and works endlessly from 6 in the morning until 10 in the evening farming, caring for her children, and preparing meals for the family, which includes her husband, mother-in-law, various uncles and cousins and 6 children. She is probably in her 30s though as nobody keeps track of time, ages are only guessed at.

Closest in age to me is Jaibu, a very stubborn and hardworking 8 year-old who thoroughly enjoys her authority over her younger siblings. Jaibu and I share a bed in the women's hut,a one room round hut made from mud and straw and shared by 5 women and children. Though it lacks running water or electricity, Its cool temperature makes it a highly desirable destination to relax in the hot afternoons.

A new ritual I've become especially fond of is bucket bathing, and I look forward to the early morning trips to the well with Jaibu to collect the water. Though I'm probably about seven or eight years her senior, she can far outperform me in all daily tasks and finds my clumsy efforts to draw water from the well endlessly entertaining.

Apparently everyone here finds nearly everything I do hysterically funny; whenever I pound millet, wash clothing, tie a headscarf, or even eat with my hands in true Senegalese fashion, a small crowd of children and young mothers with babies on their hips circle around to gape and laugh at the inept American girl attempting to do basic household chores.

In the beginning I didn't appreciate the constant audience and the feelings of embarrassment and stupidity that followed me around for the first few days. Since then, however, I have learned the Pulaar phrase for "please teach me," and am now on the road to vast improvement as I learn the various skills that generations of mothers have passed along to their daughters since the beginning of time!

In response to my pleas for instruction, little Jaibu has taken me on as her pupil. Now, at the trips to the well at dawn, she teaches me proper hand technique to ensure that maximum water retrieval. She helps me to hoist the full water bucket onto my head and, using basic body language, instructs to keep my neck straight and eyes ahead. I then follow her slowly on the route back to our hut.

After about 30 seconds my head feels on the verge of cracking open and I ponder what the long-term implications and damages of spinal compression are. My shoulders are already soaking because I can't seem to keep water from sloshing all over the place. By now, Jaibu is always a good 50 feet ahead of me, busily chatting with other girls as she walks comfortably with only one hand on the edge of the even larger bucket balancing perfectly on her little head.

Though carrying water every morning is a rather painful reminder of my inadequacies (how did my mother in New York fail to teach me these fundamental life skills?!), early morning bucket baths are still a highlight of the day. There is something really beautiful about watching the sunrise over the rice farrow while bathing in the company of many women and children. The overwhelming heat of the midday sun has yet to hit, and I've discovered how far even just a third of a bucket of water can go, and how to make it more than sufficient for a full bath.

I've also reconciled myself to sharing the shower area with cattle that roam about freely. Thanks to a goat who trampled the straw fencing a few days ago, there is now a gaping hole providing a second entrance and a scenic view out across the fields to gaze out of while showering.

It has become my morning routine and now, on day five, seems the most natural schedule in the world. Occasionally it is during these moments of ordinary daily activity-- pulling water, carrying it on my head, scooping it with a gourd shell-- that I remember where I am. I do a little "zoom out" in my head and imagine a globe (an object the people of Sara Souma have no comprehension of) and picture my little pinpoint in West Africa, and then my parents' pinpoint in New York, a friend's pinpoint in California, Pakistan, or China.

It's during these daily activities that I think about showering in Paul Revere, not with longing, but with a sense of wonder, strangeness, and astonishment. I've come to accept that when I'm sitting under a baobab tree sipping tea, my home in New York is vague and hazy-- as abstract and surreal as mud huts will probably seem when I'm sitting in a Starbucks sipping coffee in downtown Andover, Massachusetts in a few short months.

Earlier this afternoon we experienced an unusually strong rainstorm. Within a few minutes the sky changed from clear blue to a dark grey and the entire ground became slippery mud in the downpour. At first we all took cover under the huts and sat staring blankly out into the rain. To break the monotony a few kids began a game of shoving one other outside the hut into the rain. Within several minutes the game had evolved into a raucous water fight. Kids peeled off soaking clothes and chased each other around slipping and sliding in the mud, splashing one another in the puddles, and pushing others to the ground.

At first I resisted their attempts to pull me in with them. No, sorry, I don't particularly enjoy being "selby" (Pulaar for wet), especially when I know there's no hot shower or warm, dry clothes awaiting me afterwards. But their giggling and squealing was too much to resist. The kids prevailed and soon enough I was sliding in the mud with them, covered from head to in brown slime. As I chased them around laughing at the absurdity of the situation and how ridiculous I felt, I couldn't help but recall another instance in which I abandoned my inhibitions and concerns about getting wet: a particularly large snowball fight that erupted outside Ryley shortly before sign-in one Saturday night in January.

Though home is miles and miles away from here and my language and culture seem even more distant, it is these universal qualities of human spirit - how we are able to communicate, laugh, dance, and play without a word in common, that remind me why I bother to abandon the material and emotional comforts of home and why I've found myself here.

Tibet

Sarah Poole '08

High school students often see the summer before senior year as sort of a ‘last chance’ summer. For some, it’s a last opportunity to rack up prestigious internships to list on college applications. For others, it’s last lazy summer they can enjoy before entering ‘the real world.’ But for me, and a few other Phillips Academy students, it was a first chance summer – a chance to leave our comfortable world and go somewhere truly foreign in the hopes that we could make a difference.

This summer I traveled to Tibet with Tantum Collins ‘08, Dan Silva ‘08, Evan Hawk ‘08, Johnny Bukawyn ‘08 and Sophia Lee ‘09. We were there for three weeks, splitting our time between experiencing the rapidly disappearing culture and helping out at Dickey Orphanage in Lhasa.

‘Dickey’ means happiness in Tibetan, and that’s what Tamdrin Dadhon hoped to provide when she founded the orphanage in 2002. Today Dickey houses 80 children and is currently in the process of relocating to a larger plot of land, where they will have room to expand.

Our time at the orphanage was initially focused on tutoring the kids with goals to improve their English, math and art skills. However, as our relationships with them and the culture changed over time, so too did our goals. By the end of the three weeks we still spent ample time on lessons, but our focus had shifted dramatically. From their teachers at school to the people who ran the orphanage, these kids had no shortage of people to learn from. What they needed were people who genuinely cared about them and above all else, that’s what we provided.

A year from now, maybe Sonam won’t remember exactly how to spell ‘tree,’ and Sepal will probably have forgotten just how many hours Johnny spent spinning her around in circles. Maybe they won’t remember our brief visit at all. What I am confident of, however, is that they will never forget the feeling of being cared about and to me, that’s all that really matters.

Amigos de las Americas

Youth-to-Youth Community Development Project
Patrick Woolsey

Amigos de las Americas is a nonprofit organization which sends volunteers from the U.S. to spend 6 to 8 weeks living and working in Latin America. There are Amigos projects in countries ranging from Mexico to Nicaragua to Paraguay. Volunteers live with a host family while carrying out a development project chosen by the local community. Projects range from teaching health or nutrition classes for elementary school children to the construction of sanitary water-supply systems or fuel efficient stoves. Volunteers receive some training before leaving the U.S., and undergo a brief in-country training program in a regional capital before dispersing to their communities. Each community hosts two or three volunteers, who work together to choose, design and complete their project in collaboration with community members.

My partners and I taught classes to about 30 kids aged 8 to 14 in the town hall. Working from a curriculum provided by Amigos, we covered topics like personal hygiene, healthy eating and exercise habits, and environmental topics from pollution to reforestation. We designed all our own lessons, including lots of games, art projects, and hands-on activities. It was challenging at times, but always very fun and rewarding. Our other major project was a community improvement initiative. We held a town meeting where we decided to work with the local youth group to plant about 300 fruit and shade trees. We traveled with the town mayor to the county capital to convince the government to help pay for the trees.

I was totally immersed in the culture of a rural Mexican town for six weeks. My partners were great, but we spent very little time by ourselves, and therefore we spoke in Spanish most of the time. We became very good friends with many families in the community. We ate meals with a different family every day, and heard stories about their experiences crossing the border to work in the U.S. We played soccer with the kids and went to discothèques in the city with the teenagers. We had long talks about the future of humankind with the town mayor, and a schoolteacher taught us to play mariachi songs on the guitar. By the end of our stay, we felt like we had lived there all our lives.

Amigos is probably the best and most meaningful community service and cultural immersion program available to high-schoolers. I had lots of responsibility and independence. Rather than doing everything with a big group and working on an arbitrarily chosen project, Amigos volunteers interact entirely with locals, helping them to reach a consensus on a project that benefits everyone, then working side by side with them to make it a reality. I am very proud of what I accomplished together with my partners and my community. Amigos had a big impact on me as a person. I learned how to be self reliant, to appreciate another culture, to speak better Spanish, and how to be a community organizer. I strongly recommend this program for anyone who wants to challenge themselves and broaden their worldview. Amigos was an incredible amount of fun, and it changed my life.

Canada/US Mathcamp

Alex Dehnert

Before I came to Mathcamp, I didn't really love math. After my three years at Mathcamp, that has changed. I'm now interested enough to read some math books for fun (historically, Springer has provided two college level math books per camper). I think I also now have a better idea of what sort of math I like best --- abstract algebra (which I would not even have seen for a few more years without Mathcamp).

While the classes are certainly a large part of camp, they also aren't the whole thing. Campers and staff organize numerous activities, ranging from the stupid ("Rock scissors", the game "Rock paper scissors" except without the paper so rock always wins, although the best strategy is said to be playing a random mix to "keep the opponent guessing") and the quirky (trying to keep balloons in the air), to the more commonplace (every year, the Mathcamp a capella group "Contrapositones" sings a variety of songs, some traditional and some math related). Also, the people are awesome to talk to.

I strongly recommend Mathcamp to anyone interested in math (or computer science or even the physical sciences).

Burgos 2007

Maggie Maffione

This past summer I lived la vida loca en Burgos, Spain. From the plaza life to the serenity of El Camino de Santiago, the Burgos program immersed me in the Spanish lifestyle and culture. I never expected to feel so comfortable in a foreign country, but within the first week, I felt at ease living in Spain and I quickly became more comfortable speaking Spanish.

My Spanish family was incredibly supportive and understanding throughout my visit, constantly reassuring me that my speech was improving and that they were so happy to have me living with them in their home. I felt so welcome living in their house and these foreign strangers truly became my second family. The Burgos people were also incredibly inviting and friendly, smiling at us Americans as we walked around the city and even partaking in our gicana of Burgos by directing us to various locations on our hunt.

Living in Burgos was an amazing experience for me; it opened my eyes to different ways of living, improved my ability to speak and understand Spanish, and even introduced me to life abroad. I now know that I want to study abroad at some point during college and live in Spain for a few years during my adult life. Burgos was just the great beginning to a life of Spanish experiences.

Heifetz International Music Institute

Rainer Crosett '10

The Heifetz Institute is an intensive six week program for advanced musicians ages 12 to 25. It was founded by violinist Daniel Heifetz, cousin of Jascha Heifetz, on the concept that young musicians should be instructed in how to communicate the true meaning and emotion of music, not just the technique behind good playing. In order to realize this goal, students of the Institute take part in daily one hour classes in voice, drama, movement, freedom of expression, and public speaking. By becoming aware of other musical genres, young musicians develop the skills that popular artists use to communicate freely with an audience. These classes boost confidence, make the onstage experience more comfortable, and allow young musicians to get in touch with what they feel about a piece of music in order to project it to the audience. Professors hail from Julliard, Tufts, and New York University to share their knowledge with artists of another genre. The interaction is remarkable.

Students at the institute, in addition to the "Communication Training" classes, practice five hours per day and enjoy one hour private lessons twice a week. Chamber music is also an integral part of the institute, with five hours of group practice time and one private coaching per week. There are two student concerts and one Celebrity Series concert in the course of a week, with numerous community outreach performances. Students are encouraged to perform in local churches, retirement homes, and schools weekly. Also, guest artists visit from the nation's top conservatories to give regular masterclasses. In the past, these have included Paul Katz, Pamela Frank, and Pinchas Zukerman.

 
In all, the Heifetz Institute is the experience of a lifetime. It is an intense musical venture and one I could only recommend to the most serious instrumentalist. For me, it was the perfect way to spend a summer.

Tecotour by AIDG - Guatemala

Meredith Rahman '10

Every morning Carolina wakes up in a sleepy daze and walks on the soft dirt of her kitchen floor, compacted by generations of use. Thick smoke fills the room as kindling begins to burn on the stove. From dawn until dusk, 365 days a year, this smoke infests the room.

Carolina is 7 years old. With every breath she takes, more and more soot fills her developing lungs. Without some help, she will most likely develop the respiratory problems her family and friends have. Fortunately, thanks to an AIDG-designed stove installed by a group of 10 high school students from Weston, Carolina might breathe a bit easier for the rest of her life.

AIDG, a Weston-based nonprofit, has an ambitious agenda. Its goal is to provide basic services such as electricity, sanitation and clean drinking water to as much as a third of the world’s population. Access to these services is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty in developing countries.

Through a combination of business incubation, education and outreach, AIDG helps people get technology that will better their health and improve their lives. AIDG has been working for the past few years creating appropriate technology for poor people. They develop machines that use local resources and are inexpensive to produce.

This year AIDG invited 10 students from Weston to accompany them to Guatemala for both a cultural experience and to provide some additional manpower.
We were that group of 10 high school students, nine from Weston High and myself from Phillips Academy, who signed up for 10 days of a "Teco-Tour," as AIDG billed it. We had a full itinerary of outdoor activities. One day we built a biodigester, another day we toured a geothermal electric plant, but most of our time was spent building the cooking stove that Carolina and her family would use for years to come. It is a properly ventilated stove that burns fuel efficiently, producing a lot less smoke which is routed outside by means of a vent.

Our first few days in Guatemala were spent as any "Weston trip" would – touring, eating and taking too many pictures. Our only worry was showering. We were told that the water was electrically heated and so if we touched the shower nozzle a 40-watt jolt could possibly rocket through our body.

The following day our group traveled by private bus that sped down rolling hills. The roads were steep, narrow and without guardrails. We gazed down at deep gorges only a few feet from our windows. Our conversations about the safety of our bus rides typically ended with nervous laughter and an eerie silence. Nonetheless, we arrived in Xela (pronounced "shay-lah") in one piece. There we got right to work.

Our first task was to build a biodigester, my personal favorite. Its function is to take in human and animal waste to produce fertilizer, to be used on the fields, and methane gas, to be used in stoves. I’m not an engineer, so please excuse me for this crude description. The biodigester is basically a big plastic bag with three holes for waste, fertilizer and methane.

Soon after building the biodigester we moved to Nueva Allianza, the "rural village." It had a bio diesel factory, coffee and macadamia factories, and its own hotel. However, poverty was everywhere. Few villagers had access to clean drinking water. The schools were dilapidated. We went straight to work.

Our mission was to build two stoves for two families and our group broke into two teams to accomplish this task. Each team was assigned a house in which they were to build a stove. Each morning we hiked up our mini-Everest to the houses we worked at. We stared wide eyed at the machetes used to cut the cement and brick blocks. For three days we measured, cut, leveled, and measured again. Finally we neared the final stages of our masterpiece we had created. Not only could it cook food like other stoves, it used less wood, and most importantly, prevented smoke from entering the living room and into the lungs of adults and children.

We met the family we built the stove for. Dimitri, the father, would smile sweetly as I stammered in broken Spanish to him. Manuela, the mother, was the true head of the household and nothing seemed to get by her. The children and grandchildren ran over to us when we worked and helped us in various tasks, be it mixing the mortar or nailing some wood.

Some in our group remarked how the trip broke their "Weston bubble." I’ll admit that happened to me too. We often forget how different most of the world is from Weston. We are indeed fortunate to be living in this town and grateful for what we have.

It seems odd now when people honk in anger at me in their cars. We realized what a luxury a flush toilet is and it is a blessing to be able to take a shower without fear of being electrocuted. Our trip to Guatemala seemed like a dream. I met the friendliest and the most hospitable people on earth. They had very little, yet they shared whatever they had with us.

Summer Internship with "EF"

Andrew Clay ’08

Last summer I worked for eight weeks at EF Foundation for Foreign Study, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. EF Foundation, a subsidiary of EF Education, is a non-profit organization that coordinates high school foreign exchange programs around the world. While their main office is in Cambridge, EF Foundation has offices around the globe including in Hong Kong, Germany, Thailand, and Vietnam.

I contacted EF in mid-March about the possibility of an internship for the summer. After an interview with a member of the EF Foundation staff, I was offered the job. As an intern on the placement team, which is responsible for placing students with host families, I was responsible for placing ads in newspapers across the United States, answering phones, and helping with the placement of students among other tasks.

I had picked EF Foundation originally because of my interest in foreign languages and international travel. However, I did not expect to have the opportunity while working at EF to use my German skills. Surprisingly, I actually spoke a lot of German with people, who had come over from the German offices for the summer to help out in the Boston office.

My internship experience at EF Foundation was better than I had expected. Most of the people I was working with and for had recently graduated from college. In addition, I worked side-by-side with two college interns. As a result, the working environment was very young and exuberant.

Purney Student Travel - Spain

Julia Dean '11

This summer I went with a group of 15 other kids to Spain where, accompanied by two leaders, we navigated our way though Spain, and experienced everything that our surroundings had to offer. In total, we traveled to 6 cities in Spain, staying on average a week in each city. Each of the cities were chosen for a specific purpose, often because the city was known to be particularly friedly towards Americans, or because of some exquisite culture difference, or accent. While in each city, we were given exercises, or fun "treasure hunts" to prompt us to interact with the local people. Everything that we did was based on what the students in the group wanted to experience in Spain. Each city had its own unique qualities, and we attempted to discover all of them. For example, while in Madrid, we attended a flamenco show, and a bull fight, and while in Luarca, we were each allowed to pursue a specific interest of ours by interning in the local stores, restaurants or bakeries. For one week out of the five, we were each assigned to specially selected families in Segovia, whom we lived with for that entire week without seeing each other, or speaking any English. Although this sounds daunting, the families are guaranteed to be great, and everyone agreed that this was the week in which they learned the most, not only Spanish, but about the great culture that is Spain.

In Spain, I felt that the Putney program offered the perfect balance of structure and freedom. We had leaders, both of whom were fluent in Spanish, and very interesting and fun to be with. The leaders made sure that our every whim was met. At the same time, the program is for students, so we decided what it was that we wanted to do as a whole. There was also plenty of free time in which we could shop in the towns, interact with the locals, or just sleep!

I would definitely reccomend Putney Spain to anyone interested in improving their Spanish, or simply learning about the culture. In the program, there were kids of all levels of experience in Spanish, and everyone learned a lot, all the while having a great time. This program was one that I will look back on years to come, and remember forever.

World Visions - Mexico

Caitlin Kingston

The last two years, our program involved cleaning up the local school and even more importantly, establishing relationships with the children and people of the community. We washed down the classrooms and desks using the meager supplies that were available, cleaned up trash outside the school, planted trees, and gave the school a paint job. We also bought new supplies for the coming school year. Working hard each day proved to be extremely rewarding. However, developing friendships with the adorable children and adults in the community was even better. Playing soccer games with the kids and just hanging out and trying to use the little Spanish we knew was a ton of fun. Eating the lunch the women in the community made each day with everyone was also wonderful. Although there was a language barrier, it did not stop us from becoming great friends with the people there.

The things I experienced in Mexico I will never forget for the rest of my life. Each day was an amazing learning opportunity and it made realize just how lucky I am. The people in the community had basically no material things, but what they did have was joy over the important things in life and an understanding that God was going work it out in the end. Being with them was a real blessing and they are definitely role models to me. I hope that someday I can spread the same joy and love that they did to me and truly understand what is really important in life. I am so excited to go back next year and I cannot recommend it enough to other people for a summer program.

Intern Exchange International

A Strategic Position
Adam Giansiracusa '08, Strategic Studies

During my summer in London with Intern Exchange International, I had the pleasure and privilege of interning at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. IISS, one of the three big international relations and defense policy institutions in London, has multiple publications and a large number of researchers. It has managed to attract a number of notable and important people from around the world.

As an intern, I worked in the library, helped with daily tasks, and was given virtually free reign to go through its enormous catalogue of materials. I thought I had a good idea of what were good sources of information before coming here, but it turns out I'd only scratched the surface!

Due to its incredible reputation, the institute attracts eminent speakers. In just one week, I heard a U.S. Army Colonel who works with General Petraeus in Iraq discuss a path forward, the owner of Pakistan's leading private news company offer his thoughts and condemnations of Perue Musharraf's government, and Czech Foreign Minister Benazir Bhutto discuss and lament the direction in which her country was going.

Add to this the kindness of my co-workers, who worked constantly to make sure that I was happy and fulfilling my goals for the internship, and it's clear that this month was a wonderful and illuminating experience.

Taking Stock of My Future

Kieran de Brun '08
Stock Brokerage

I anxiously arrived 15 minutes early on my first day at Dawnay Day, dressed in my freshly pressed suit and ready to embark on an extraordinary learning experience. Within minutes of being introduced to the trading floor, I witnessed the most remarkable work environment, with all the yelling in earnest and constant phone calls, yet with a noticeable ambience of humor to ease the stress. I immediately knew I was in the right place and buckled down to learn the ropes.

Throughout the next few weeks my boss, Michael, became my idol, my teacher, but most of all, my friend. The bond I formed with my boss and my co-workers helped ease my transition into the office and built my confidence, allowing me to excel at my job. At the end of four unforgettable weeks, I had made wonderful new friends and found my future career.

Most of all, I came to understand the passion of my mentors for their jobs, and they ignited that passion in me. They set an example of what it takes to be good at what you do. After this remarkable experience, I'm convinced that success and contribution to a productive environment comes from the pursuit of something you love, something you are passionate about, and something that gets you up every morning with a smile and enthusiasm, ready to tackle any challenge.

Choate Rosemary Hall Summer Abroad in Paris, France

Alicia Keyes '09

This program offered both rigorous academics and lots of freedom. Mornings were spent from 9-12 in classes of Literature, Language, History and Art History. After 12, we had 2 free hours to go off into the city for lunch, shopping, sight-seeing, etc. At around 2, the group met back again at a Museum or place of interest for an hour or two. After the visit, afternoons were completely free. My friends and I often stopped at cafes, took the metro to different sections of Paris, shopped at all the major department stores, sat in the Luxembourg Gardens...the freedom to explore was amazing. At around 6, my roommate and I returned to our host-family's apartment, which was right along the Seine looking across to the Eiffel Tower! After conversation and dinner with our host-parents, we completed our homework (which usually took around 2 hours). If we had time that evening, my roommate and I explored our neighborhood and perhaps had a croissant at a cafe. The weekends were especially fun, as curfew was 11 (occasionally pushed back to 12 or even 1). The majority of the group often chose to take the metro to the Latin Quarter, which is a fun area filled with little alleys of shops and little restaurants.

I would definitely recommend this program. I met students from all over the country and had an incredible summer in Paris. The academics were definitely intense! Lots of classes, lots of homework. However, it really balanced out with the freedom. I got to know the city really well, just running around Paris with my friends. A great experience, lots of fun!