Ryan - Why I chose Harvard Summer School

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

Hello, All my name is Ryan from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I completed Harvard's two weeks summer virtual pre college program in 2020 and I took a class called American History through musical. I did the Harvard pre college program because I was looking for an activity over my summer that would challenge me academically and socially. I was working a full time job that summer, so I couldn't do something that took up the entire summer. In the two week pre college program, I got to take a class that took me incredibly in depth to both American history and musicals at the time. As part of the program, I got to learn from Harvard faculty, sit on on lectures from PhD students and take a subject and develop my passion in no other summer program or college experience was I able to find a course that really blended my two interests of American history and musicals. It was like a match made in heaven because I learned so much in that class. It didn't feel like learning because I was just so interested in the subject material, and it was made even more fun because the four other people I worked with for those two weeks were equally as interested in musicals in American history. We had some amazing, thoughtful in depth discussions and like it was unlike any traditional classroom discussion I had during the school year. It was so cool to hear these, like geniuses talk around me and just talk about what it means to be an American through the lens of musicals. I discovered the Harvard pre college program because my counselor had suggested that I look at it in preparation for my senior year and also for a way to prepare me for calling. After completing the program, I could most definitely say that you learn a lot and you learn how to take a college course, how to complete the work on time and really, how to develop mind set off effective organization time management while still being an active participant in class here, still hesitant about joining the program. It was one of the best experiences of my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Even though it was a virtual zoom classroom, I still felt incredibly connected to the Harvard campus, the Harvard students at the Harvard faculty.