Local high school students get a taste of college at University of Indianapolis camp
For many high schoolers, the prospect of college is overwhelming; the University of Indianapolis hopes to change that for a group of local teenagers.
For the past two years, the southside university has hosted a summer success camp for students from the Perry Township School District. This year, 82 students are spending the week living in the University of Indianapolis dorms and taking a variety of bite-sized “classes” taught by professors. The experience aims to give students a glimpse of what college has to offer.
Current college students accompany the visitors, answering questions and providing insight along the way.
The program is designed for students considered “non-traditional” college attendees, such as students who receive free or reduced lunch or those who would be the first generation in their families to pursue higher education.The program, which is funded through the Lilly Endowment, provides each student with a $200 stipend to compensate for any lost working hours during the summer months.
Students like Peyton Thompson, an incoming junior at Perry Meridian High School, say the camp allows them to explore the possibilities of college.
“There are so many things I didn’t know about, but you can go outside your comfort zone,” said Thompson, who was back at camp this year for the second year. Thompson now hopes to attend the University of Indianapolis to study biomedical science.
Other students like Anizha Washington, an incoming junior at Southport High School, said spending time with current college students helped her feel more comfortable about college. Washington said she particularly enjoyed sessions on health and business and hopes to study marketing.
"It's fun, you get to see a lot of new perspectives," Washington said.
In the mornings, students engage in dynamic in-classroom experiences. The lessons are designed to take a concept taught in a university setting and present it in an engaging and relatable way to high school students. On a recent Tuesday, students learned about the concept of inflation. Professor of Business Allison Snyder played a homemade version of “The Price is Right,” asking students to guess the prices for items in 2004 and 2024 dollar amounts.
Synder showed the teens how the perception of inflation can be outside reality. Many students overestimated the price of grocery items but underestimated the cost of more expensive goods like laptops. Students were broken into small groups, where they debated why certain items might be more expensive than others.
Other morning sessions allowed students to explore creative opportunities. Students learned the basics of audio production with Professor Peter Nichols by recording and editing their own miniature podcasts. Knowing the basics of these tools serves as an introduction they can take further, Nichols said.
Students spend the afternoons on field trips to various businesses to see how classroom concepts play out in the real world. The classroom and real-world experiences help the students create a vision board at the end of the week.
Some students post these collages in their lockers when they return to high school in the fall. Last year Thompson hung hers on her bedroom wall, so she would see it each morning, providing a simple yet powerful reminder to keep an eye on the road ahead.
Tyler Spence is a Pulliam Fellow primarily covering businesses. He can be contacted at jspence@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis-high-schoolers-experience-college-u-indy
