My STEM Summer Institute Experience

Makenize participated in our in-person programming up until we went fully virtual due to Covid-19 in March 2020.

This year I had the pleasure of attending the CAP & GOWN Project’s STEM Summer Institute. The pandemic changed how STEM Summer Institute is normally done, but the CAP & GOWN staff and teachers did an amazing job of making sure that our virtual experience was just as enjoyable an experience as if we were in-person.

Our daily STEM SI schedule typically allowed us to have half of the day working on the four ACT sections, a lunch and learn with various public figures and the rest of the day was sectioned off for a lecture and college prep studies. As a rising senior I enjoyed the ACT prep and college prep the most. In our college prep class, we learned how to write a resume, find colleges that suited each person best, and began working on college application essays. And, we did all of that while practicing skills which will boost our ACT score!

The ACT portion of the STEM Summer Institute was very helpful for me. I received a mixture of whole group, small group, and one-on-one help in order to target the specific sections that I needed to strengthen. I was able to gain information in order to boost my score. My score in math rose by 2 points from the STEM SI pre-test to post test and my reading score went up by 7 points! This was the most important and valuable part of the STEM Summer Institute because a higher score will allow me to broaden the spectrum of colleges that I will be able to apply to and make me eligible for additional scholarship dollars. 

Some other aspects of the STEM Summer Institute that I enjoyed were the lunch and learn sessions and the model college lectures. During the lunch and learn, we ate our lunch and listened to people in various careers about their experience in their position and how they got to where they are now. This portion allowed me to determine what careers I was interested in and some careers that I was not interested in.I was able to gain a lot of knowledge and learn about different viewpoints throughout history, politics, and cultures through the engaging lectures that we had. Overall, both of these portions allowed me to gain knowledge that will be valuable for my future. 

From the ACT prep to the lecture time, I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to attend this summer program. I learned so much valuable information that I would not have learned if I was not in this program.

-Makenzie, Jemison ‘21